One of the highlights of my week—particularly if it's been a week in which we haven't seen much of each other—is to curl up on a Saturday morning with my husband and the Globe and Mail cryptic crossword.
Our old breakfast spot. (Credit: L'Express) In the old days before my daughter was born, we would go to the French bistro down the road and pore over the clues while the consummate wait staff brought us hot cups of coffee, toasted brioche bread (him) and perfectly poached eggs (me).
Nowadays, we make pancakes and coffee that is only ever lukewarm by the time we get to it, and read clues to one another while our daughter plays on the thick carpet.
Nowadays, we make pancakes and coffee that is only ever lukewarm by the time we get to it, and read clues to one another while our daughter plays on the thick carpet.
My husband is what they call “a catch”. He is athletic, educated, smooth-tempered, witty. He is also very clever. But domestic life being what it is—routine, comfortable, mundane—neither his smarts nor mine are on display much these days. We do our sharp thinking at work. At home, we prepare baby food, fold laundry, write grocery lists.
This may be why I relish that Saturday morning crossword ritual as much as I do. It's an opportunity to really think, which, in the fog of caring for an infant, I don't often have the opportunity to do. But it's also a chance to see a side of my husband that I adore: his intelligence, his lateral thinking. Occasionally, he supplies a piece of trivia that is completely new to me.
Is any of this familiar? Do you solve cryptics with someone you love? Or do you solve cryptics alone, relishing the yin-yang of order and creativity they open up in your mind, like a neatly stacked shelf of wonderful books in a room that is otherwise in chaos?
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