Being a big kid: The joy of jigsaws and love of Lego

Before Covid-19 hit I used to be somebody. I’d spend my time outside Weekend Towers watching movies, talking movies, pretending to exercise and eating fried chicken.

Now I’ve been reduced to a shell of a man with nothing to do but watch movies, talk movies, pretend to exercise and eat fried chicken.

I will be having a word with myself of course ... It’s wrong to let things slip like this.

Many people have proudly been far more industrious than myself over the last few weeks, and I applaud you all.

While representing a situation we would never have wanted, lockdown has given people an opportunity to explore new hobbies, develop new interests and – perhaps better yet – reconnect with old ones.

A combination of relaxation and stress release is essential for surviving lockdown, and however you’ve achieved this, good on you.

Here, First Knight of Castle Weekend Andy Richardson, and myself as the ever-floundering court jester, are going to share two of the not-so-guilty pleasures that have helped us keep our marbles while waxing lyrical from home...

Andy Richardson trades the rock’n’roll life for the joy of jigsaws.

The Happy Mondays were slumped on a dressing room floor. Bodies were strewn around. Strange white powders and small pills were on the floor.

Such scenes used to be commonplace in a working life spent interviewing rock’n’rollers. A private aeroplane with Blur? Fun. A whisky and cigar with Bono? Don’t mind if I do.

An intimate tete-a-tete with the late Prince in his Wembley Arena dressing room. Thank you, sir, that’ll do nicely. And why do you keep slapping your purple-booted-foot?

More recently, chefs have filled those hours. A stroll with Marco Pierre White in the grounds of his hotel; a staff lunch with some Michelin-starred tyro or a road trip that makes Withnail and I look like the playground.

Funny how things change. Lockdown has changed the topography in our normal working lives. And now, rather than the inside of celebrity dressing room or the heat of a kitchen, it’s the sofa with a laptop.

A rubicon was crossed when my Twitter timeline featured a writer who’d discovered the joys of jigsaws. Yes, jigsaws. She’d found a website that provided an unlimited number of jigsaws and declared there was no need to breach lockdown; her life was complete. I Googled. I found the site. I did my first jigsaw. Boom.

Evenings are no longer complete unless I’ve pieced together at least 300 pieces of a complex puzzle featuring a rainbow of colours, an assorting of asymmetric shapes or a collage of images. Yes, I’ve become addicted. Yes, I compete to finish puzzles quicker than Aaron in Alabama. Yes, when it gets to 11am I secretly think: ‘Only nine hours until I get to turn over the pieces’.

When lockdown ends and we’re allowed into kitchens, theatres, concert halls and dressing rooms, will I take an iPad to secretly rattle out a 180-piece puzzle in between acts? When restaurants open, will I take my smartphone and smash out a 60-piece jigsaw in between courses. I wouldn’t rule it out.

I’m trying to reassure myself that I’ve not fallen off a cliff and become An Old Man. I don’t have a pipe, I don’t wear slippers and I don’t drink cocoa. Mind you, all three sound pretty good, don’t they…..?

Dan Morris reverts to the building blocks of his youth.

It was by far my single greatest pleasure as a child, and one that over the last 20 years I have ummed and ahhed about re-discovering.

Hours of fun were spent with a host of detritus strewn across my parents’ living room floor, much to my mother’s chagrin and my father’s adoring eye-rolls.

With it having entertained generations of children the world over since 1949, I was hardly alone in my love of this particular toy, which in 2015 in fact replaced Ferrari as Brand Finance’s ‘world’s most powerful brand’.

And it all started in the workshop of a Danish carpenter...

Lego, was, is, and hopefully always will be a massive part of my life.

My grandad and I would spend untold hours manufacturing incredible creations from it during my youth, and some of my happiest memories will always involve sitting on my lounge carpet, allowing my imagination to go wild, and just design, create, disassemble and do it all over again.

I’d heard stories a few years ago of how Lego had been used in physiotherapy, and also to help sufferers of dementia, and it was then that I came to truly appreciate that my childhood obsession was not only a wonderful toy for children, but also a tool from which adults could benefit.

Interesting...

Not suffering from any particular medical issues I thought they could help with, I put the fabled plastic building blocks out of my mind. Until, in fact, one night late last summer.

After half an hour of harmless text-based chatter with a few pals, I realised I was one of the only ones who didn’t have a home-based stress relieving hobby on the go – something just to turn to for a bit of calming ‘me time’.

I smiled, and knew exactly what the situation called for.

Courtesy of two very generous parents, for my 32nd (yes, 32nd) birthday I was the delighted recipient of a Lego Star Wars Millennium Falcon construction kit, replete with stickers, mini-figures and a fantastic array of complex blocks that hadn’t even been invented the last time I’d delved into a set.

I couldn’t help but giggle – how we regress, eh?

Too old? Nah – this was brilliant – and over a blissful 48-hour period I lost myself, almost entirely distraction free, in the joy of creation that had been the hallmark of my formative years.

In over two decades I hadn’t been as relaxed or at peace with the world. This was the future.

As Christmas rolled round I was happily gifted another set, and with the onset of lockdown got stuck into another magnificent Lego project that – with a construction manual of over 1,000 steps – has certainly kept me busy so far.

More importantly, as far as a Star Wars fan in his 30s devoting his dining table to the construction of a Lego Star Destroyer could be judged to be so, it’s kept me sane.

It’s important to have these go-to pleasures at times like these, and one that has also benefitted both my mental and physical dexterity has been a godsend.

More importantly, it’s let me reconnect with some very happy happy memories, and has let me be a big kid again – very important when you have to spend a lot of time being a grown-up.

Lockdown will be over at some point. Will my second love affair with Lego? Not a chance.