fun | Pilgrim's Perch

If looking out of the window it has looked too cold and uninviting for venturing outside for very long why not indulge in the quiet and absorbing pastime of a jigsaw puzzle?

*Watching the weather on a rainy, cheerless day*

From an early age these delightful puzzles can bring hours of calm and content. Building up an image that reveals itself piece by piece is undemanding, tantalising and hugely satisfying. The quiet clatter as the pieces tumble out of the box creates a sense of anticipation and adventure. The initial sorting of the pieces brings hints of what is to come.

*A jumbled, tumbled pile of pieces. What will they reveal?*

After you’ve turned all the pieces so they’re face up do you just get stuck in? Or do you like to get all the edge pieces gathered together and then complete the outline of the puzzle? (That’s something that can be so frustrating if you find yourself short of a couple of pieces that prevent you from finishing the edge.)

Jigsaw puzzles come in all shapes and sizes. They can be educational or just fun – and very often, both! I recently completed a puzzle that depicted a collage of pre-Raphaelite arts of work. Identifying them and looking up the story behind each picture was a joy in itself. Now I can’t wait to start the next one!

*Discovering new delights with a jigsaw puzzle*

So, for a soothing, peaceful way to pass time when outdoor activities feel less inviting, turn to the trusty jigsaw puzzle – and create yourself a picture.

One of the joys of summer holidays is being able to take time out and just wander without a specific goal or destination in mind. Walking along a sea shore, sand between the toes, wind in the hair, the cry of the seabirds and the susurration of sea waves gently curling on the beach. Lines from AA Milne’s poem Spring Morning come to mind:

Where am I going? I don’t quite know…

If you were a bird, and lived on high,
You’d lean on the wind when the wind came by,
You’d say to the wind when it took you away:
“That’s where I wanted to go today!”

A playful wind and an expanse of open beach create the perfect environment for the fun of flying a kite – something that has been enjoyed for hundreds of years. It’s unclear who invented the first kite but it is believed that the earliest kites, made of leaves and reeds, were used to aid fishing. An early written account of kite flying comes from China in 200BC when a general of the Han dynasty used a kite to fly over the walls of a city he was attacking to measure just how far his army would have to tunnel under the city walls to achieve domination.

Kites flying over the beach — Colourful kites dance in the breeze

Since then, kites have evolved and been used for many different purposes. As playthings for children they provided hours of amusement but gradually it was realised by scientists that they could be used for studying the atmosphere and understanding more about the weather.

Child plays with kite on the beach — A child has fun with a kite

Kite flying also helped with the development of early aircraft and they were used militarily in observation and aircraft recognition exercises. Modern hang-gliders and sports parachutes have their origins in early kites and today kite-surfing has become an extreme sport in which kite riders combine kite flying and surfing to perform breath-taking acrobatics.

A kite acrobat rides the sea — Kite riding with the birds

But you can keep it simple too – there’s still so much fun to be had with your feet on the ground and a simple colourful kite. As the children in the film ‘Mary Poppins’ found:

‘With tuppence for paper and strings
You can have your own set of wings
With your feet on the ground
You're a bird in a flight
With your fist holding tight
To the string of your kite.’

Child launches kite for the first time — The excitement of that first launch…

Tag: fun

Jigsaw Puzzles

Let’s go fly a kite…