Perhaps because it came so soon after the very successful House Party at Peterborough, but not helped by the weather either, attendance at the Spring meeting and AGM was much lower than usual with only about 20 members making their way to Harold Hill, though one, Maria, came all the way from Germany just to make the meeting and meet fellow puzzlers!
Fittingly, the Show & Tell theme was “Spring”. Alan’s Chad Valley 150 piece GWR “Springtime in Devon – Fingle Bridge” kicked off the session, to be followed by his 1915 Pears print “A Military Wedding” cut by Genest Desfosses and finally one cut by Aunt Eva, “Joi de Vivre in Hawaii”. Jan shared “Spring Bluebells” by The Kwiz Puzzle and then Liz showed a Cecil Aldin hen and chicks puzzle and a small cardboard advertising puzzle for Liverine bird food.
Tom’s two contributions were a Master Craftsman Gold Box puzzle, “Horses Ploughing”, with a cut very similar to that of Optimago puzzles and, stretching the theme a little, one of his own cuts of a panther about to spring! David finished the session with a Ponda puzzle “Bend in The River” of Dutch tulip fields, a G.P puzzle of a bird in a gorse bush and an Eric Pedley cut circular puzzle “Spring Flowers”. Maria then ended the session, telling the assembly about her collection of antique world maps and showing an 1880’s Ravensburger six cardboard maps in a single box, a double sided puzzle with a map on one side and a checkers game on the other and an Atlas set of maps enclosed in a book with a topically fitting absent British Isles piece (not) in a puzzle map of Europe!
See Gallery page for more photos of the puzzles shared at this meeting.