MPP LCIIIX

We’ve been planning this one for months! Anne and Nick were going to be around for a business trip and Dick was going to be visiting Wimbledon and we’d managed to find a weekend in the middle of all that,that worked for Dick and Nick – so we settled on the date and told the universe about it… Dave decided it would be fun to come over for a few days and join us and then George and Esther got in touch and said they were considering stopping in on the way to Bridges... and pretty soon we had a major US contingent coming along to MPP.

All of the carefully laid logistical plans then got tossed out of the window when some of the guys got hit by train delays on their way to Barnt Green – I grabbed George, Esther and Dave from the station and dropped them at their hotel until Nick’s train got in and then we collected everyone and brought them to the house. Frank and Jo arrived from up north soon after. It was wonderfully hot afternoon so we made sure the drinks were cold and the puzzles plentiful.

I headed off to the airport to collect the Dutch contingent ensuring we had achieved a critical mass of puzzlers by the Friday evening… this was a great start to a puzzling weekend. I braaied far too much meat and we feasted outdoors as the heat began to recede just a little.

Wil presented me with my copy of his new puzzle and swore me to much secrecy, so I won’t mention it(!).  We chatted and puzzled for a few hours before I ran the Dutch contingent down to their Airbnb and dropped most of the Americans at their hotel… before I crashed.

Next morning we changed up the schedule so I could collect Dick from the station before all of the planned logistics sprang into gear: I collected the Dutch puzzlers and we headed to the hall to open things up… Chris was already there so he and Louis and Rob ended up doing most of the hard labour while I sorted out the drinks and refreshments. Somewhere around ten o’clock half the London gang arrived at more or less the same time as Gill and Frank dropped off the Americans. The ranks swelled steadily and the puzzling proper kicked in.

I had some minor success at trying to get rid of some surplus puzzles but in the end most of them would end up coming home with me again… I’m going to need to find a sneaky way to get rid of them… perhaps I’ll run a competition or something.

Dick had made up a large bunch of souvenir gifts and made a point of talking to every puzzler present and giving them a souvenir of the event… when my turn came he also shoved a thumb drive in my hand with his complete compendium of over 21,000 wire puzzles – no doubt significantly adding to the number of disentanglements I can’t solve. :-) Thanks Dick!

Nick had also come prepared with a neatly packaged souvenir gift – and even gone to the trouble of branding it with his own take on bad Roman numerals – so not only did you need to make a symmetric shape, you also had to work out how his numerals could give you the right MPP number – nice touch, Nick!

While I’m on the subject of giveaways, George had printed and brought along a huge pile of Stewart Coffin Meteoroids (STC 100-A) – and he ended up with a steady queue of folks chatting about that and his other new creations over the course of the day.

I’d taken along my copy of Peter’s No Way Box and several groups of puzzlers took turns having a go at it… they seemed to make some progress, but I’m not sure anyone actually solved it.

Steve and Ali did some light trade over the course of the day supplying various puzzlers with bits of brass they needed.

We badly mis-timed lunch and missed out on pig rolls that had already sold out just after noon – had I mentioned the weather was brilliant and the village was buzzing? I settled for a samosa and a sack of crisps which did me well alongside all of the cakes and biscuits I scoffed all day long… Peter’s Pan provided a number of kebabs for the more health-conscious puzzlers among us.

A few of us had taken along our copies of ‘The Mother of All Weekends Box’ for folks to play with and they all performed flawlessly, except for one of them… one of my mates definitely seems to have problems making puzzle boxes! (Names have been withheld to protect Steve’s reputation.)

Wil had brought along a case-full of puzzles either for sale or to give away and between him and Louis their carry-on was around 11kg lighter on the trip home. Wil helped himself to a couple of my give aways and managed to find a more elegant solution to Theo and Symen’s Sand Box than I’d found – he’s a pretty damn good solver as well as an ace designer.

Chris had thoughtfully brought along a set of Andrew Crowell’s ball-bearing-i-fied puzzles and a 3D printed set of Greg’s NOS Burrs… for some reason people thought it would be funny to dismantle them all and leave them in a pile on the table… I was somewhat relieved they didn’t appear to have enough time to repeat that on my set of recently assembled Benno burrs!

One of the big hits of this MPP was Doog’s Double Trouble box that Steve Canfield – he of Boxes and Booze fame – had sent over with Nick – Steve had decided that Double Trouble deserved to go on a bit of a world tour, and since Nick was heading to MPP, this would make a good jumping off point for an international leg. Several knots of puzzlers spent a while huddled around Double Trouble at a time and then duly added their names to the list of solvers safely locked inside. I had a great time when my turn came – the mechanisms are intriguing, and all totally fair and honest – there’s a lovely journey to the solution, with each step politely clued to avoid having to guess at any stage. Doog’s put a lot of thought, and just enough clueing into the puzzles – while he freely admits to borrowing one little element, the rest are all pure Doog – some elements may look a little rustic, but the precision in the mechanisms is jaw-dropping… and the main “A-Ha!” when you realise what the main mechanism is, is just brilliant. Kudos to Doog, and thanks to Steve for sending a 1/1 puzzle on a world tour so a whole bunch of other puzzlers can enjoy it!

It was nice to meet Robin who prefers his puzzles math-y – he seemed to be getting on like a house-on-fire with George and hopefully he managed to spend some time with Dick as well. Robin had brought along a few of his own designs and took a fair amount of joy from seeing some us struggling with them – and yeah, I struggled more than most!

There were a few of Juno’s Tortoises around and by the end of the day most folks who didn’t have their own copy had been able to have a bash at one – unlike that time when we had a whole bunch of koalas together, we didn’t run a photoshoot with tortoises doing naughty things to one another – ‘cos that would be wrong!  

We must have had around 20-odd folks there and it felt like a great MPP.

Somewhere around 5:30 we tidied up, piled everyone into cars and headed back up to chez Walker for the traditional after-MPP-party. The heat meant the outdoor spaces were very popular and everyone ended up either chatting or puzzling until the fish suppers / leftovers were served for dinner. (I told you I’d braaied way too much meat the night before so about half of us ended up choosing to have braai leftovers rather than fish and chips – only I didn’t tell them what the leftovers were as I knew there wouldn’t be enough if everyone wanted leftovers!)

Somewhere around 10pm most folks headed back home and we dropped folks back at their Airbnb and hotels… tidied up a bit and then crashed – awesome day!

Next morning we ate breakfast and then collected the puzzlers who were still around – George and Esther were heading off to Eindhoven a bit earlier than the rest of the Dutch contingent so they headed off to the airport.

I got to spend some quality time puzzling – off on my own in a darkened corner with just Wil watching me surreptitiously while he solved puzzle after puzzle. I made enough progress that I didn’t think I’d wasted my time, but I did hit a pretty big brick wall and decided I should put it aside for now.

Lunch was a fabulous DIY affair with plenty of happy puzzlers.

After lunch Nick and I rounded up the Dutch contingent and dropped them at the airport and then collected Anne from the train station next door fresh from her business trip to Cornwall. Once Anne had solved the ticket barrier puzzle (new variant – not the Oliver Soos Disentanglement) we headed home for a relaxed afternoon’s chatting, with a side of puzzles.

That evening Nick and Dave took us all out to dinner at our local pub for a hearty meal before a few more hours chatting at home… I dropped Dave back at the hotel and he headed off to London the next morning while the four of us had breakfast at Toast – my current favourite breakfast joint.

From there we headed off to Broadway Tower for a bit of a wander around, timing our visit to the nuclear bunker impeccably to miss the passing thundershower… we drove down the hill to the village intending to wander around the village in search of afternoon tea, only to be trapped in the carpark by the mother of all showers… and after sitting there for a while we decided we’d just head off home where the hounds were happy to see us!

We grabbed a pizza at a new joint in the village before Nick and I ended up playing through the new Mystery Agency adventure in a box: The Man from Sector Six – it had only arrived a couple of days earlier and it was great fun getting to play through it with Nick – overall we did reasonably well, although we didn’t actually start a timer on it, preferring to just enjoy the puzzling. That said, I didn’t go to bed too late!

Next morning after I headed off to work, Nick and Anne headed London-ward for a final day’s exploring before they headed back to the west coast…

Most MPP weekends are pretty brilliant, but this one’s probably going to stand out even more because of all the friends who joined us and spent a while visiting – thank you all!