Puzzles

 We've been in and out of various levels of lockdown for more than a year, and though we don't - or didn't - have much trouble entertaining ourselves before that dreadful day, it seemed we needed another teeny distraction.

I have done puzzles of all sorts for a while.  It started not so very early - maybe was 11 and for some reason I had a crossword puzzle magazine.  My friend Donna and I tried to figure out this and that and had some success here and there but not much.  Then her dad took the magazine and filled in all kinds of blanks and I was incensed!  Jealous!  I wanted to do it, too!  

I played around here and there and took it up again in college.  Gradually, I got better at them but never great, but it was fun.  Crostics, crosswords, Jumbles, cryptics (they were challenging).

Then the ooooohhhhh lockdown.  Werner and I decided to start the puzzles that were published daily in our newspaper.  At first we saved them, thinking we'd do them while travelling (when we could still do that last summer.)  Lunchtime was good for puzzling.  And it was great for me!  Vocabulary practice, even a bit of grammar practice! 

Here's a puzzle they call a crossword, but there is a definite disassociation between German and English here. 

First of all, they put the clues IN the puzzle.  Sometimes two letters will be together that have nothing to do with each other or the puzzle. And there is absolutely no rhyme or reason to the blank spaces.  

OK.  It's Germany.  I am getting used to it and I'M GETTING BETTER!!  I still can't come up with German composers who died in 1845 or the name of the leftovers from thrashing, but every little bit helps.  

But we are getting behind.