how to solve a cryptic crossword

I was cranky yesterday afternoon.

Somehow I had missed the memo ordering all Sunday drivers to be especially aggravating on a Saturday.

Traffic was shit, shop service was bad. Welcome to Perth, where time stands still and so too do her inhabitants.

After letting out an unintelligible war cry of rage, I drove to Granma and Granpa's place, where tea and an assorted tray of biscuits are a must. Especially squashed fly biscuits.

At Granma and Granpa's you rarely need to knock on the door. Granma has already shuffled over to the door and greeted you with some witticism or another.

But today she was quiet as she opened the door carefully.

"Ssh..." she whispered, "the baby's asleep,".

The baby is her 86 year old husband taking a snooze on the sheepskin-covered couch.

We're relegated to the bedroom lest I hear his snoring.

We can leave the bedroom at 3pm and have the legendary tea and biscuits. Until then, I am regaled with stories of why my great uncle has a stutter (Freak gliding accident, apparently).

"What's the time?" she asks.

I hold my watch out to see it's three o'clock on the dot. Time to wake Granpa.

During tea and biscuits Granpa normally stays quiet. He's the strong, silent type. The still waters run deep type. He's also rather deaf.

But this time he would pipe up every so often from behind his cryptic crossword.

"Granpa does the cryptic crossword every day," says Granma. Speaking for him is her norm.

"It's not as hard as normal crosswords," rasps Granpa (he always sounds raspy, as though he hasn't spoken for a while when he talks) "you get two clues put together in the cryptic crossword."

Fair call, I thought but those two clues are still tricky.

"The LB one in the Sunday Times is the trickiest," he said.

"To complete the LB you need a thesaurus, a good atlas, the complete works of Shakespeare, a Bible and an encyclopaedia."

That explained the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. There they all were.

He read out a clue in the latest cryptic crossword.

"Book coming my way?" he asked.

Granma and I looked over at each other and shrugged.

"Tome!" he said brightly in a self-satisfied tone.

There were chuckles all around as we laughed at the dad jokeishness of it all.

"He's so clever," said Granma half taking the mickey, half complete adoration for her husband of 60-odd years.

Granpa got up.

"Oh, it's four o'clock already is it?" asked Granma, "I thought you had a shower yesterday."

"No..." was his reply.

Granma reached over to his shelf where he keeps his Columbines, crosswords and a calendar, it would appear.

She showed it to me. Every second day was highlighted yellow. Shower day. Every other yellowed day had a C for clean clothes, others had a H for washing his hair. He had his hygienic routine mapped out until August.

We chuckled and thought about the prospect of highlighting a square one day out.

Granpa returned from his shower and had a bit more of a chat just before 5 o'clock. Or bowls o'clock as it would happen to be.

Today I bought the Sunday Times. I'm going to give the LB a crack.

Just to see how I go.