Do You Like Solving Crosswords?

Back when I used to work before retirement I used to hate crosswords and didn't even bother to solve them because I thought that they are too hard to complete. This changed when I went on my retirement and had a lot more spare time. I decided to start solving, and it became my hobby, now I love doing it!

 

I've never been very good at crosswords so I don't often bother to try one. If I have time to spare for anything on the puzzle page, I'll rather try to solve the Sudoku.

 

I have never solved one crossword puzzle. I have tried more than once, but I just get frustrated. My father used to get the Sunday New York Times and sit down with a cup of coffee and would just fill in the words as if he had a "cheat-slip"!

 

I started doing the crosswords in the newspapers on the Metro in Washington. Now I find that most of the daily puzzles take 5 minutes or less--but sometimes, depending on how bizarre the theme and how bad the puns are, I still can't solve the Sunday New York Times puzzle (which is syndicated in our local Sunday paper too).

 

I started liking crosswords when I got bored at work one day when I was about 25. I used to hate them up until that point, but something just clicked at that moment, and here I am, almost 30 years later, still enjoying them.

 

Yes, it's really a great activity to kill time or to train your brain and gain knowledge.

 

Sukoku is also great, but for me I like crosswords better, I never manage to solve the Sudoku properly.

 

I tried working crossword puzzles. I could never complete one without looking for the answers in the back of the book. I like to put my two cents in when someone else is doing one though, sometimes I'm right, sometimes what I say gives ideas to the puzzle solver leading to the answer.

 

I do picture puzzles but could never get into crossword puzzles.

 

I have been a lifelong puzzle freak! I started buying Dell puzzle books when I was a young teenager, and just got hooked. Later on, I graduated to Games magazine, which was a little more diverse and difficult. Now ever lunch hour at work is filled with my puzzle solving. I can't imagine life without them. LOL

 

I used to be able to do crosswords and liked them a lot but as my Alzheimer went on, I lost the ability to solve those verbal puzzles. Sometimes I feel really sad remembering those good old times.

 

I love cryptic crosswords. In fact, I've just spend most of Sunday morning bashing away at the Azed crossword in The Observer newspaper. This is a notoriously nasty crossword that contains a lot of very obscure words and requires the presence of Chambers Dictionary at all times.

I suppose that cryptics require a certain mindset, but in some ways, I find them easier than some so-called quick crosswords. After all, you get both a definition and cryptic part of the clue rather than simply a definition.

 

I love crosswords, though admittedly I don't do them as much as I used to. I prefer the easier ones, as they don't take so much time, but the feeling of satisfaction you get from doing a harder puzzle is compelling.

 

I cannot speak for myself so let me just brag about the skills of my husband, hahahaaa. It actually started like this. He would solve the crossword puzzle and got only a few good answers. He was using pencil in anticipation of his mistakes. Feeling frustrated, what he did was to cut out the crossword from the newspaper and get the words he missed by looking at the solution on the next day. I remember his envelope where he keeps his cut outs. And then there was that long list of words with meanings that I didn't know were lifted from the daily crosswords.

When my husband went to the US and worked in a factory, he would do the crossword of the factory's newspaper in the canteen. One time a supervisor caught him doing the crossword and was really amazed. He said that my husband was a wizard because he, as an American, couldn't solve that crossword puzzle in English.