Okay, so today I decided to tackle this crossword puzzle, the one themed “babe in woods”. Found it tucked away in the weekend paper pile.
Getting Started
First things first, I grabbed my trusty pencil – gotta have an eraser handy, you know how it goes. Sat down with my coffee. Started scanning the across clues first, always my method. A few easy ones jumped right out, like “tree covering” for BARK, stuff like that. Got those filled in pretty quick, which always gives you a bit of a boost, gets some letters on the grid to work with.
Hitting a Snag
Things were going smoothly for maybe ten minutes, then I hit a few rough patches. There was this one clue, something about a “lost youngster’s cry”. Took me ages. My mind kept going to WAIL or CRY, but the letters just didn’t fit with the crossing words I already had. And another one, “deep forest shadow”, just couldn’t picture the right word. It’s frustrating when you know it’s probably simple, but your brain just won’t cooperate.
The theme itself, “babe in woods,” was a bit confusing at first. I wasn’t sure if it pointed to one big answer or if multiple clues would tie into it. I started looking for fairy tale references or words related to being lost or young.
Pushing Through
I decided to switch over to the down clues for a while. Sometimes attacking it from a different angle helps shake things loose. Found a couple more fairly straightforward answers there. That gave me a few more crucial letters for those tricky across clues I was stuck on. Slowly, painstakingly, the grid started to fill up more.
That “lost youngster’s cry”? Turned out to be BAWL. Simple, right? But it just wasn’t coming to me earlier. And the “deep forest shadow” ended up being GLOOM. Once I got a letter or two in place from the down clues, it finally clicked.
The Final Stretch
It took a bit longer than I expected, maybe 45 minutes in total with a short break to clear my head. The theme clues were sprinkled around, mostly words related to forests, children, or maybe feeling a bit lost or naive. It wasn’t super complex, just needed a bit of thinking.
Finally, I was down to the last two intersecting words in the bottom corner. Stared at them for a good minute, pencil tapping. Then saw how the letters had to fit. Scribbled them in. Boom! Done.
Felt pretty good to see the whole grid filled in. Always a small victory finishing a crossword, especially one that put up a bit of a fight. Cleared it off the table, time for something else.
