This was the first puzzle I did in the Abandoned Series by Ravensburger. I absolutely love the looks of each puzzle in the series. I have four of them, but there may be one or two more out there now, I’m not sure.

I did this puzzle during a visit from my bestest buddy since kindergarten. She flew out with her son Logan around New Year’s Eve 2022. My mother had passed away at age 83 on December 21 that year, and Gina’s angelic son Brody had passed just seven months earlier at the age of 15 due to a congenital heart defect which ultimately resulted in complete organ failure.

We were both in desperate need of some comforting that only the two of us could have provided to each other during that time — we had over 40 years of friendship behind us and had been there for each other during many other difficult times. It was fabulous to have them visit and I think helped both of us a bit in the healing process as well.

As I mentioned in a previous post a while back, Gina and I have known each other since the first day of Kindergarten which as this point is over 46 years ago! I cannot believe I just said that. But ironically it was not until well into adulthood that we discovered we both really enjoyed doing jigsaw puzzles. It was very surprising but awesome to learn that we had yet another thing in common and didn’t even know.

So of course we decided that we would work on a puzzle together while she was here visiting and this was the one she chose. It was not an easy puzzle to put together — it’s very dark as are all the puzzles in the Abandoned series. This one is probably one of the lesser dark ones believe it or not, and yet it was still pretty “gloomy” as the title suggests.

We had so much fun putting this together as it was truly the very first time we puzzled together. I think from now on every visit we make to see one another will have at least a little time dedicated to putting together a puzzle. I look forward to it.

Amazingly enough we did manage to finish the puzzle in the time she and Logan were here visiting — although I will admit she did the bigger percentage of the build while I was laying out pieces face up on trays a lot of the time. Still, it was a super fun build and the bonding time was even better.

And the final completion shot.

Wow! I did not know until just two minutes ago when I looked up who the artist was for this beautiful image — it’s another Eduard puzzle image! Man, I really do love this guy’s work apparently. Just stunning!