Small pleasures

One of the things I enjoy doing is making puzzles. Our daily newspaper offers quite a rich variety, and I particularly like the one on Friday, where the questions are quiz-like according to a theme (e.g. 3, or Russia, or black). The one on Monday is also nice, because you have to create your own crossword while only nummers are given. The nummers correspond with letters. Everyday there are sudoku’s. I usualy make one or two of them a week.
On saterday, there’s a cryptogram, which I sometimes try, but is quite challenging for me. I should do them more often to learn the way the author thinks and to strech and bend my mind. Whenever I find a word, it feels so satisfying, like a creative a-ha Erlebnis. Everything fall into place and I am proud the anwser popped up.
On our holiday, this April, I discovered a small magazine in the hotel offering numberpuzzles. So there I was frantiquely calculating for some time (not my strongest point).
My love for puzzles even went so far that I sometimes copied them from a magazine, when we were still living in Nieuwegein and the library was on our weekly route to the grocery. Jelmer Steenhuis made such a nice mix of clues and questions that it was a delight to solve them. Unfortionately, the puzzle didn’t survive the restyling of the magazine. A pity.