Contrary to what my friends, bloggers and book club think, my leisure time is not totally filled with book reading, instead I puzzle over crossword puzzles.

In downtime, my relaxing go-to fillers can be television, radio, YouTube, walking, things on my iPad, things on my phone, even talking to a real person, anything that comes under the banner of time-out.

But my big love is crossword puzzles. I have been doing them in newspapers and magazines for years.  When I was a young girl sick in bed, my mother taught me how to solve a crossword in the Australian Women’s Weekly and I was hooked.

A favourite puzzle is the one with only numbers as clues.  Yet my long abiding dislike is Sudoku which is numbers.

“There seems to be two main types of people in the world,
crosswords and sudokus”
or discuss with 
The Everyday Behaviour Analyst
or perhaps InsideHook
https://www.insidehook.com/article/games/crossword-puzzles-print-media-new-yorker

Not so long ago I tried puzzles online.
It didn’t suit my hand-eye co-ordination.

There are hundreds of crossword puzzle books but I discovered Take 5 Puzzler booklet.

I will try most challenges and styles so I am in seventh heaven with a recent January edition of the Take 5 Mega Puzzler with 130+ puzzles, some I have not seen before — of course, Alphabet Sleuth is the best!

Taxing — yes
Good for my brain — yes
Fun — yes!

♥ Gretchen Bernet-Ward