Going to pieces?

I woke early and came downstairs. The house was cold as the central heating had only just come on but I couldn’t be bothered to go back upstairs to get my new dressing gown. I looked for my old dressing gown. It was under the hoover in the utility room. I put it on but realised there was a half-eaten mince pie in one pocket. In the kitchen I made myself a cup of tea and then half-asleep I shuffled into the lounge and started to look at the half-finished jigsaw again.

We always did a big jigsaw over Christmas. It was a tradition, like having mince pies on Christmas Eve and always leaving one out for Santa even though both the children no longer believed in Santa. I broke the news to them before their first term at university and they took it very well.

Doing a jigsaw is a bit like reading a good detective story. There are lots of clues. You don’t always know whether you are fitting things together in the right way but the process is enjoyable. When you read a Sherlock Holmes or an Agatha Christie or even a Richard Osman you know that the clues will be there and as you read the book you travel on a journey of understanding. Finally you get to the end and you can see the complete picture and you know that the world isn’t so chaotic after all. Out of the chaos there is order. With a jigsaw you start off with a jumble of pieces in a box and you end up with a beautiful picture.

This jigsaw was called the magic forest but there wasn’t anything magic about it. In the picture on the box there were lots of trees. Always difficult in a jigsaw. Lots of brown pieces. Lots of green pieces. Lots of pieces with bits of green and bits of brown. Not much sky. Not an easy jigsaw to do. In the middle of the trees there was a glade featuring a mixture of animals, some foxes, a few rabbits, a deer, a couple of hedgehogs, what looked like a wild boar and various other woodland creatures all chilling out harmoniously in the middle of this so-called magic forest.

The jigsaw had come from a charity shop a couple of weeks before Christmas. Only £1.50. I just hoped that all the pieces were there and no pieces were missing. Nothing was more annoying than to get to the end and find that a couple of pieces were missing.

It had been a stressful Christmas. We tried to capture the magic of those wonderful Christmases when the children were young but there was something missing. I tried my hardest. I wanted to keep the old traditions. Nobody else wanted to go for a walk on Boxing Day. So I went on my own and walked for two hours in the pouring rain.

Even the big jigsaw tradition hadn’t really worked. My wife didn’t want to bother now. The kids were busy on their iPhones. They made a few token attempts to humour their old dad but they weren’t really interested. Didn’t they care whether the magic forest would ever be completed?

The jigsaw was now about 50% done and I looked closely at it really hoping that I could find a piece that I could slot in somewhere. I sipped my tea as I was gradually waking up, gradually waiting for my brain to start working. The more I looked at the jigsaw the more I felt something was slightly wrong. I had a weird feeling. It felt like the jigsaw was more complete than when I had left it late the previous night.

The rest of the family were fast asleep upstairs. Maybe somebody had come down during the night and had slotted in a few pieces. Or maybe I was just mistaken and I had made more progress last night than I had remembered. I kept looking at the jigsaw but I couldn’t fit anything in. It was a harder jigsaw than I expected. I looked on the box. It said that it was suitable for ages 8 and upwards. But was it suitable for people who are 58?

I went into the kitchen to get another cup of tea and a bowl of cereal. Three minutes later I was back in the lounge. To my surprise some of the pieces that I had been trying to fit in seemed to be part of the jigsaw and it was now probably about 60% complete.

I ate my cereal looking at the jigsaw and trying to figure out what was happening. Then I heard a noise from the hallway. It was the cat. I had to let him out. When I came back into the lounge I could hardly believe my eyes. The jigsaw was 75% complete.

What was going on? How was I getting so confused? Was I going to pieces?

As I was trying to work this all out the doorbell rang. I wasn’t expecting anybody. Who could this mysterious visitor be? I opened the door to find my neighbour standing there. He had brought round a Christmas card for us that had been wrongly delivered to his house. We chatted for about ten minutes. It sounded like his Christmas had been almost as stressful as mine. I was going to show him the jigsaw but he said that he had to get back for an Amazon delivery.

I went back into the lounge. I looked at the jigsaw. To my astonishment it was complete. Every piece. Nothing missing. Nothing to add. I looked at the picture on the box. Everything was perfect. It took a moment to sink in. I had worked out the mysterious  puzzle and figured out just exactly what was going on. Now I knew what was happening.

The jigsaw was doing itself!

Finally I understood why it was called the magic forest. And I realised that Christmas was still magical after all.