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crystalcazzieI'm trying to catch up on the things I keep meaning to post about, so let's travel back to the end of November when I went up to Lytham for the 10 Hour Jigsaw Puzzle Marathon!
I got the train up the day before because it's a long journey from Hastings! The Euston to Preston part of my journey was delayed, which meant I missed my connection and arrived in Lytham an hour later than planned. The good news is that meant I could claim Delay Repay and I got the full cost of the journey back! Also I saw someone at Preston station who I recognised from Worlds so I said hello and we were able to get the train and head to our hotel together. Claire was also part of my team, so it worked out really well!
I'd signed up as a solo competitor so was added to an already existing team. I met up with them that evening at the cafe where we played some Jigsaw Duel and then went to Pizza Express for dinner.
In case you don't know what Jigsaw Duel is, which I didn't before that evening, it's a game where two people have to put together a small puzzle that shares a final piece, which is placed on a stand in the middle of the table. Whoever finishes and grabs the final piece to complete their puzzle first wins!
Like so.
The Christmas decorations looked very pretty in the dark.
The next morning I went for a brief walk before the Marathon started. Lytham is a very pretty place right by the sea.
I returned to the hotel to meet up with Claire and we walked to the cafe together.
Our first puzzle! I didn't take a lot of pictures during the actual competition but it was a lot of fun. We had a variety of puzzles. I felt a bit guilty about being slow on a couple of them cos they really weren't my strong suit! We had a rota for breaks and followed it well, but it did mean that I wasn't puzzling during one that I'd done before and feel like I would have been really good at!
There was also a puzzle set up in another part of the cafe for people to work on while they weren't marathoning:
I did most of the bottom right corner, which I was quite proud of cos it was not the easiest of puzzles to do!
In the end we came fourth out of five teams. But it was fun. I do worry that I was a weak link, but I try to remind myself that I did win every game of Jigsaw Duel I played so I can't have been that bad!
The next morning I had breakfast in the pretty pub I'd stayed in:
It was here that I came up with the idea for my Rumbelle Secret Santa fic this year. I had planned out a whole different idea on the train up, but sitting there with the Christmas tree I wanted something more festive.
The walk to the train station was a bit damp, but Lytham was still pretty:
That shop you can see in the middle of the picture above was playing music outside for some reason. And that is how I lost Whamageddon just after 9am on the 1st December!
