I find myself late getting back from a work thing so Gill
ends up doing the airport run to collect Rob K, Wil and Louis from their
Amsterdam flight and Stefan from Sofia – and shortly after I get home, the
car-load of puzzlers arrives at
chez Walker.
There are some quick hellos – it’s only been a few weeks
since we all met up in The Hague – we make sure that Rob knows where to find
the puzzles – and we get some pizzas in the oven as we’re all ravenous. By the
time the pizzas are ready we have a serious challenge to clear enough space on
the dining room table given all of the puzzles that have already come out to
play… it’s a good start to a fine puzzling weekend.
We manage to polish off most of the pizzas, maintaining the proud
Walker reputation of never knowingly under-catering. The puzzles come out again
in full force and I get to join the gang for some chatting and puzzles.
Stefan’s been whipping up some amazing 3D-printed beauties yet
again and he gifts me a matching copy of Wavelinks and Spheres – they make my amateurish
prints look decidedly sub-par and I’m delighted with them…
Two recent arrivals (Zak from Radek and Doog) and the Third Window
Lock from Dick Hensel come out to play and I’m intrigued to see Zak putting up quite
a good fight, while Window Lock 3 continues to beat all comers… me included.
Rob begins his mission to work his way through the Karakuri
boxes and Stefan spends some quality time with Roger’s Maze bolt + while Wil
starts a wonderful relationship with a copy of Singmaster’s 25 Packing puzzle.
At the end of the night I drop the Dutch contingent off at
their Airbnb down the road and I crash for the night. The pups make sure I’m up
pretty early and after some pastries for breakfast, I drop Stefan at the hall while
I head down to collect the Dutch contingent. By the time I get back Stefan has
sorted out all the tables and chairs and been joined by Rich, Ali, Steve and
Michael… it’s like there’s going to be a puzzle party or something.
James, Lindsay and Rosie spend a good few hours visiting on
their way back down south – James works his way around the assembled masses
catching up with folks he hasn’t seen for a while and at some point we announce
a December White’s Plot Puzzle Party – which sounds like a fabulous excuse to
visit with friends again and possibly even play with some puzzles. James is
still insisting that he’s no longer collecting puzzles and then generally in the
next breath is asking everyone what new puzzles he absolutely must buy…
Fraser brought his long-suffering better-half along. I
suspect Vic was hoping for a quiet corner to read a book but she ended up
spending most of the day chatting with puzzlers and playing with puzzles – and to
be fair, she didn’t look any less expert at solving them than any of the rest
of us!
Amy and her hubby joined us for most of the day, along with
the twins and she managed to do a great job of wrangling a couple of wee ‘uns
while also solving a bunch of puzzles along the way – I suspect the boys are
going to have to turn into puzzlers!
Dale had brought a whole collection of
ever-so-slightly-naughty pottery thingies for Wil – who was thoroughly delighted,
and I suspect that Dale was delighted to find a good home for them…
Lily had come along for the day too – so it was good to have at
least one responsible adult in the room!
A couple of us snuck out a little early for lunch lest we
find the pig rolls had run out like last time… no such trouble this time –
there was heaps so when we got back we told everyone it was lunchtime… ‘cos we’re
nice like that.
Lots of folks ended up spending time playing with Oskar/Bram’s
Ziguflat – it was a huge hit, definitely one of the nicest DCD giveaways we’ve
had. Rich did me a solid by not only taking apart my copy of Climburr, but actually
solving it as well… and leaving it in a solved position this time! (Thanks Rich
– there’s no way I was getting that apart, or back together again!)
Fraser very kindly gave me a copy of a couple of his recent
Christmas puzzles – a beautiful little snowflake edge-matching puzzle and a
mini Towers of Hanoi with three Christmas trees for towers – Thanks Fraser!
My new little Rocky treasures got a good playing with and
most folks managed to find their way around the Beerstein and Teapot, but the Ice
Bucket tended to put up a bit more of a fight.
My sneaky plan of taking along a couple of new Osanori’s
that needed solving totally backfired as everyone else who had a bash at them
failed as well…
Sometime after sunset we tidied up the hall and headed back
up to the house where we procured a large box of fish suppers (and a plain sausage
and chips) for the hungry horde. Mikael had cooked what I probably incorrectly
referred to as a potato bake and that went down a storm alongside the more
pedestrian fish suppers.
There was many hours of puzzling with a long line of old
Stickman Puzzleboxes coming out for a play and an even longer line of Karakuri
boxes cycling between the dining room and Puzzle Cave #2. It was great to see
them getting played with as folks discovered some of them for the first time!
The masses began drifting homeward at a reasonable hour –
probably just as well given at least one of the major motorways had been closed
for the night – ironically one that had had no roadworks on it for the first
time in years… I guess they missed having the roadworks.
The Dutch contingent were duly dropped off at their digs
before another late (for me!) night…
Next morning bright and early Stefan and I had a quick
breakfast before dropping him off at the airport and then collecting the
Dutchies on the way back home… for a few more hours puzzling, and some delicious
homemade soup with freshly baked rolls courtesy of Gilly.
By the early afternoon Rob had made serious headway through
my Karakuri collection, Louis had helped me analyse, fix and solve a plethora
of puzzles I had lying around and Wil had made sufficient in-roads on his
Analysis of Singmaster 25 that he was smitten by it… a fine end to a superb
weekend’s puzzling fun with my friends… thanks all!
