A thirst for more

• by
• Gillian Ainslie

Sunday, June 5, 2005

Let me start off with a bit about myself. I am 24 and although I am Scottish, I now live in the North East of England with my husband and our three and a half year old daughter.

My husband is a huge speedway fan, as was I until recently, when I decided that standing in the freezing cold for two and a half hours every Saturday night just wasn’t for me. My husband still attends meetings. Not that I have ever been on a bike - 70mph, 500cc engine with no brakes – no thanks, but I wanted to turn my attention to something a little less physical, and a little more mentally stimulating.

I bought myself a book of logic puzzles and would spend hours trying to work out who "wore blue" and "lived at number 14", when I discovered that there was also a small selection of other puzzles in the book including LAPs, PAPs and FAPs. Soon I found myself addicted, although not very good at them. Once I had attempted all the ones I could find within the book, I developed a thirst for more, so turned to the internet where I discovered the Conceptis site.

Still being a beginner, I found a lot of the puzzles rather difficult, but it was the first time I had tried the colour puzzles and slowly started to get the idea of how to work them out properly without guesswork. I also found the online tutorials to be a great help, although there were still a couple of things that I wasn’t quite sure about.

Whilst browsing through the site, I came across the forum, and made my first posting, hoping to find the answers to my questions. I certainly wasn’t disappointed! I now have tallied up around 250 postings, and have made many friends worldwide, that I chat with or email on practically a daily basis. It’s surprising how much you can have in common with someone who lives thousands of miles away.

I am an extremely arty person, and I always seem to have some painting or other in mind, sometimes it’s just finding the time to put paint to paper. I think that is why I love these puzzles so much, not only are they enjoyable, but they are creative too, and they are something else that I thrive on – a challenge.

• Download Gillian's puzzle