The last of our guests and a drive to England

After we got back, we decided to travel to MPP so we could pick up a few puzzles from James, visit with a few friends, and just have a few days of time alone together without guest, help, and workers.  

First though, a bit more fun with Tanner.  He made an amazing aged tomahawk dinner for us. Turns out he's a pretty good cook.  

The next day we decided to go visit a few antique stores, one of which ended up being closed but Tanner was able to pick up a few gifts and we found a few more display cases.  

On our way back to the castle we decided to stop off at Orvieto so I could show him the beautiful duomo there.  I'm pretty sure I did a ZTL violation.  We shall see when I get back home. 

Tanner helped with a few lego puzzle boxes and we had one last very good dinner out in Panicale.   This time overlooking Lake Trasimeno from the balcony of the Mossolino. 

I took Tanner to the airport on Sunday so our trip really started then.  He and George spent the morning working on the 3D printers while I packed the rest of our bags for our trip the following day.  

Around 1 or so we took off for Rome.  The trip was uneventful but we did manage to have one good last day of chat. It was a real pleasure having him stay with us.  I can't wait until he comes back with Jesse and Geneva.  

We got home around 7, had a late dinner and packed the car for an early drive.  

Our first stop was Aosta where we stayed at the base of Mount Blanc.  What a beautiful area we chose!  We have decided that this will be a goto spot on future trips.  We really enjoyed this route.  It has stunning scenery, and the drive is an easy one for me.  I finally worked out how to divide the trip into three parts.  I'm becoming more continental now. I don't want to drive more than 6 hours a day with a nice leisurely lunch picnic (and a nap) in the middle. 

The next day we drove to Reims and stayed at a F1 hotel. Nice name.  Sparse hotel.  I received an email just before arrival telling us we needed to get our own towels.  Too funny.  But for €48 a night, what can one expect.  Seriously though, it was a comfortable bed, a very tiny shower and a loo.  It was all that was needed for a nights sleep.

We arrived at Calais a bit early as usual, and I'm guessing because it was a Wednesday and there weren't many travelers, we got on the train 2 hours earlier than planned without having to pay an extra fee.  Surprise!  This put us in the UK at around 11 am.  We then drove to the North West of London to spend a bit of time with one of George's friends. Apparently, the three of them climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro together. We had a nice walk through the commons where we bumped into some cows, then we headed off to a local pub for a traditional pie and fish and chips dinner.  They were lovely people and I look forward to going back for another visit. 

On Thursday we woke up and headed for Honiton where we stayed with James and picked up a few more white puzzles, some magazines, and a few other odds and ends of puzzles.  Lindsey thought me how to make avocado soup and I remembered how much I love heated blankets. I must remember to get one for our bed in the castle. 

While at James' we had a discussion about Berrocals which lead me to do a bit more hunting, which in turn lead to a purchase of 4 more prints.  Just when I thought I had them all, more show up.  The collection is getting much bigger as we speak.  At the same time, I discovered yet another outdoor work in Italy that I simply must go see.  Turns out, it's not that far from our home so I think on the return we will stop by and take a look.  

Oh, and James has cows too!

We had a lovely dinner together and discussed the return of some of the kept puzzles to the collection. All in good time they will be returned.  For now, we have obtained the cricket bat yet again and I've given James a list of those puzzles that I purchased from the ones he kept.  I don't want him to be completely puzzleless.  Although, he has been doing a great job of repurchasing many more puzzles since we cleaned him out.  His shelves are once again filled.  

Friday after lunch we took our leave as the car didn't have internal dash lights so I didn't want to drive at night.  We came up with a temporary solution of led nightlights that I could turn on when necessary, but it wasn't ideal.  We stayed again in the Westmead Hotel. We had a nice dinner in and an early bedtime.  Tomorrow is MPP.

Puzzles and news.

This past week I was browsing Etsy like one does and came across this seller of chopsticks cum puzzle maker.  I purchased 5 puzzles and thought that would be the end of it.  Later that day I recieved a message asking if I would like a 6th puzzle that he hadn't listed.  Sure, why not, the price was good and I am all for completeness.  The puzzles arrived rather quickly, and I brought them in for George to see. He of course put them into Burr Tools as is his standard MO.  

I bought the puzzles because I liked the idea of using reclaimed cutoffs to make them.  The thought of using all those bits rather than tossing or burning them appealed to me.  When I looked at the puzzles I was originally purchasing them to add to the collection.  James gave me a good piece of advice, he said I couldn't possibly purchase all of the puzzles I saw, but should go for a variety.  I've had a breadth over depth philosophy for a while now and this was an extension of that.  Ok.  Ok.  We don't talk about twisty puzzles, or Berrocals...

As it turned out, these were fun little things that would be wonderful gateway puzzles.  They are simple  enough for newbies but with enough of a challenge to keep them going for a while.  They are puzzles you can put on your coffee table and not worry about taking hours to solve if they get mucked up.  I rather enjoyed the scrap pack box while George's favorite was the stealth bomber.  I think he liked the single color of the main piece.  I'm eager to see what his pieces numbered 4 through 9 are like.

Yes, those are a few Pro puzzles by Peter Heim.  No, I haven't opened them yet.  I'm not that clever. 

On Puzzle Palace news, nothing more exciting than puzzle hunting is happening here.  I have spent the last week doing a good clean up of our home.  The people who were to put the first epoxy layers on the garage floor in the museum came down with COVID and are (thankfully) putting us on hold for 2 more weeks. Nothing else has happened here. I should be grateful for the downtime.  Next week the landscaping will be done at Puzzle Palace, then it's replacing the pool decking and all will be finished until the next go round. 

Finally, I will copy a post from Jame's webpage. Now I know this is not news to my few readers, but I am posting it for two reasons.  The first is the line in red.  I ask that this be respected and that the emails  asking me to sell our duplicates stop.  We haven't even recieved the collection yet and I feel as though the vultures are circling.  I'm spending all too much time repeating that we will not sell or trade anything for 3 more years. 

The second is to show how long James has been looking for a home for his collection.  We are honored that he chose us to carry on the guardianship of this impressive collection.  We can't begin to thank him enough.  

NEWS APRIL 2021   Great News from The Puzzle Museum. We are delighted to announce that we have a new home for The Puzzle Museum puzzle collections. For many years we have been looking for a suitable home for the puzzles in Museums and Universities in the United Kingdom or Europe. They were amazed at the huge breadth of the collections and admired its great educational value, but all pleaded either lack of space or or lack of funding. We were therefore absolutely delighted when George and Roxanne Miller offered to take over the collection and house it in a beautiful and specially converted house near Miami, Florida where they plan to continue to keep it available for the puzzle community and for researchers to study. They also plan to continue adding to it for the future. As of March 2021 the puzzles and puzzle books are being shipped to Miami. We expect the collection soon to be renamed to include the Miller name. James Dalgety and his family will continue to look after around 500 representative mechanical puzzles which will be recorded as part of the Hordern-Dalgety Collection but not housed in Miami. James Dalgety retains the rather neglected ephemera and printed materials which he hopes to catalogue in coming years, along with his collection of hidden compartment items. He will continue to buy new puzzles for his own amusement also antique puzzles for both himself and for the collection in Miami. He also hopes to spend more time walking the dogs, playing with his old games, toys, computer games, and other crazy accumulations of stuff. This website will remain but its future emphasis will be on adding information on the older puzzles, ephemera, and perhaps some digressions into antique toys, games, &c.. We wish every success to the Miller's Puzzle Museum in Florida. It will take at least 6 months to be unpacked at its destination and there will be no sale or swapping of duplicates for at least 3 years - We will post details here when appropriate. To see the progress of the Museum building in Florida please go to Roxanne Miller's blog.

Older Status reports. The Puzzle Museum - Status and Objectives as stated in 2017. The Puzzle Museum is a private collection-based museum. Owing to lack of appropriate facilities, it is not currently open to the general public. Visitors, mostly world experts in the field, can come by invitation, or recommendation only. Unfortunately this is unlikely to change until we can find a permanent institutional home for the collection. In the 1990s much time was spent trying to find suitable premises to open to the public but, unfortunately, we were not successful. Ironically, since that time several major collections have been given to the museum, including the incomparable Hordern Collection, and the overall collection has quadrupled in size and has to be held at various different locations. It has now outgrown its original ambition of being a tourism based museum and has become an important international research archive.  The collection is the finest of its type in the world. It is the product of over 140 years of collecting by about ten different people. The collection includes a few items of great antiquity; however its main strengths are the 19th Century European collection, and its near comprehensive collection of puzzles from the last quarter of the 20th Century. It amounts to several tens of thousands of puzzles, plus ephemera and a related library of around 2500 books. It is possibly 1,000 times larger than needed for a tourist based puzzle museum but is unique as an international archive. It is extraordinary that, unlike such items as Dolls, Watches, Model Trains, Worcester teapots or Chippendale chairs, there is no comparable collection of Puzzles open to the public anywhere in the world. The Puzzle Museum has therefore given itself the following objectives: - To produce an annotated digital photographic overview of the collection. The current plan is for this to be made freely available on the museum's website (at low resolution) and to be made available at high resolution, at a price, on CDs. To maintain and conserve the existing collection for future generations. The collection is currently stored at several locations with basic controls of humidity and temperature. The policy with damaged puzzles is, where possible, to ensure that they work as intended; but otherwise to conserve them with the minimum of interference. It is considered that attempting to restore to "original condition" does more harm than good. To add to, and improve, the collection by upgrading the existing collection, and purchasing representative examples of new puzzles. To find a suitable home to ensure the long-term future of the collection. This will either be in a public museum or with a private collector who is able and willing to adopt these objectives. To enable at least parts of the collection to be seen by a much wider audience, and take advantage of the collection's huge potential as a didactic resource in many fields including Mathematics, History, 19th and 20th century Design, Packaging Design and, most importantly, the development of analytical thinking over the past 300 years. To produce a comprehensive and detailed catalogue of the collection. To look for funding and other means of achieving these objectives. In the absence of any external funding and with a current staff of less than two, it is obvious that we have a big puzzle and a big challenge... If you know of any prospective long term home for the collection, please ask them to contact us. ----------- upd. 2021-04-14