My Nanna and my Poker face

There’s not really much to report from the coal face here....... so I thought I’d pen some musings about playing the hand you’ve been dealt, and puzzling. 

All my life, I have loved a puzzle. Right from being tiny, I was entertained utterly by puzzles of any description. I have that sort of a brain. I like to be challenged. I like to use my brain. In the last couple of decades, solving a puzzle has been more about “problem solving”..... especially at work! But take me back to the days of the simple puzzle!

My lovely Nanna, Dorothy Cordwell, used to love a jigsaw. We have great family memories of Nanna (right up into her nineties) spending hours poring over a puzzle laid out on the dining table (had to eat on laps often due to the available table space being taken up for thousands of little cardboard pieces). Every now and then, you’d see her eyes light up as she dove into the box and retrieved the piece she’d been looking for. (As she aged, we sometimes had to untangle that particular piece from the surrounding picture where she’d wrestled it in.....) She was kind and patient, and never minded if we young things turned up a bit boozy from the pub and got involved in her puzzle..... she didn’t even mind if one of us did nothing more than finish the puzzle off with a flourish, without having done any of the tedious edge hunting, or tree differentiation....or sky....or sea! Ah... happy days. 

A few weeks back, my next door neighbour, Guy, who doubles up as my electrician, came in and looked at the painting of my Nanna which hangs in my hallway and asked me quizzically if it was me? Considering she was around 80 when the likeness was painted I should have been royally offended. But actually, it made me feel rather warm and fuzzy inside. I could do a lot worse than become my Nanna!

As a child, we played cards almost daily as a family. This was considered normal through the sixties and seventies. We were fiercely competitive and took great joy from simple card games which we were all able to play together. I was taught to play Bridge, but struggled with that - not really what constitutes puzzling in my book. More like having to do ones homework....

I learned to play musical instruments. I think I enjoyed this so much because reading music was, in fact, just like solving a massive puzzle. And getting that puzzle to become something audibly beautiful? Bliss. 

When I became a teenager, I discovered the joys of crossword puzzles. Started simply - but it didn’t take long until I was peering over my father’s shoulder and trying to fathom the cryptic clues in the Daily Telegraph crossword (ashamed to state the paper...the ‘Torygraph,  as my socialist leanings also took root within my developing conscience). When I moved to Bretton Hall College in 1974,  I spent many happy half hours in the student common room, and made many like-minded friends. We scrabbled for the papers each morning, (free for us impoverished students in those halcyon days) turning straight to the back for the daily black and white puzzle. There weren’t many of us, but we die-hard crossword fanatics derived great joy in collectively completing a particularly fiendish puzzle, probably in the Times, or the Guardian, which we used to call the ‘Grauniad’ (due to the numerous and often comical,  printing errors which were legendary at the time). I recall that I often had to run to my room to fetch a dictionary or a Pears cyclopaedia, in order to finish some of the puzzles off. I still keep many dictionaries, poetry books, the Complete Works of Will Spokeshave, and many other massive reference tomes,  despite not needing them EVER these days of instant referral to Google or Wikipedia. There was something wildly satisfying about poring through the pages and then finding the answer you were looking for....that hugely gratifying Eureka moment! 

I used to think that I was wasting my time doing puzzles........ playing games........ developing my grey matter. But I don’t believe that to be the case any more. During lockdown, I have watched Ned and Lou poring over Sudokus, and revelling in the mental challenges of a ‘fiendish’ or a ‘deadly’ number puzzle. Give me word puzzles please. My brain works better with them. Puzzling is good for you. One can never be bored with a puzzle at hand! That’s probably why I love crafting so much - a creative puzzle in the making!

I studied Latin and Ancient Greek at school. For the most part I considered this to be a puzzle of the highest order! I still enjoy working out the meanings of words by looking at their derivation. Did you know that a “hippopotamus” was called by such a name because it was a ‘river horse’.....or that a “rhododendron” was a ‘rose tree’.......... ? Lovely.  My boys will tell you that I bored them rigid as children in my eternal quest to educate and develop their brains! (I think I failed)....... I think that’s why I love horticulture so much too...all those wonderful plant names!

Returning to the puzzle theme. 

I now have an app on my iPad called Jigsaw Puzzle Plus ...... for me, this is the ultimate luxury. If I can’t sleep, I just do another puzzle! The days are gone when I kept myself entertained with a giant crossword or a puzzle spread over the dining table (however, we have begun to do ‘real’ puzzles again, as Lou is as fanatical about them as I am) 

We play cards as a family still too...... and numerous board games (although the boys seem to like board games which are more akin to Bridge in the cerebral effort stakes). As adults, my sons will happily point out my failings with regard to enjoying the ‘win’....... yes. I am a competitive soul, but when I eagerly helped you build scrabble words with your letters, or put the numbers together in Rummikib, boys, it was to encourage you to do the best you could, rather then for me to show you how brilliant your mother was !

The male Quineys love to play poker........ I can play too. But I don’t find it that enjoyable. Too much deceit and brag for my liking. And I’m not a particular fan of playing for money.....I want to just play for FUN........ I do, however, enjoy that small element of the poker face..........

As a small aside, Ned has just told me that Rupert has started to play chess again (possibly inspired by ‘The Queens Gambit’, but also because he was always very good, and competed as a junior). So Rupe persuaded Ned that he should join a particular online chess forum. Ned has only ever played Rupert at Chess once before, and miraculously, beat him, so when Rupe asked Ned what his moniker was, he wasn’t particularly thrilled to discover that Ned’s online chess profile is “BetterthanRupe”. Rupert’s best friend, Liam, is teaching himself to play, and has called himself “BossofRupe”..... I detect a theme. (And they think I’m competitive?)

This brings me right round to the thoughts that I began writing with....... I like to think that life is a bit of a puzzle. We can’t control our future. But we can try to play the cards we’re dealt to the best of our ability. 

Another throw of the dice, and everything changes. 

A new deal brings new challenges.

Small triumphs bring rewards.

One doesn’t  have to win all the time to derive pleasure from the playing.

There are a thousand puzzles still left to solve.

I’m keeping my poker face on.............