LIVE – September 2026 – Autumn Connections Challenge – Win £10

Ok, I hold my hands up Sally! I’ve just read through the replies again and I obviously skimmed them before without reading them properly.

Sorry Stuart, you were right. I agree, this comp is stupid, how are we supposed to know we have got to keep thinking of additional answers because there could be one or seven.

Do we have to add them all at the same time, or can we come back later and submit another word we’ve just thought of?

We can’t even help other players because we may be right, but it’s the wrong right. 🙄

@STEVEN – why ‘as per this site’..? 🤨 Seems a bit unnecessarily snarky – and the instructions above explain exactly what to do so not confusing if you actually read them, here is just part of it:

“The missing word must complete the first word when added to the end, and complete the second when added to the beginning”

I put “rail” for day 2. Interrail is definitely a word so I ‘googled’ Railpoint and it came up in several references so that’s what I went for. I accept that ‘googling’ is technically a cheat but I always turn a blind eye to adverts (ok – I know these competition sites rely on advertising income so I’m happy to accept one point instead of two 🤣)

It’s only cheating Aileen if you get caught! Otherwise it’s research. 🤣🤣

👍🤣 I’ll quote you on that, Alison

Well, we can’t argue with that, Our Sally ☺️
Come on everyone, make your name more interesting, or add an emoji, your only limitation is your own imagination !

Aww I’m so glad you noticed Alison, I wasn’t sure how to do it and wasn’t up to commenting anyway so only just changed my name – but don’t encourage everybody to do it 🤣 the reason for the emoji at the end of mine was because how touched I felt by the multiple messages but starting with you missing me posting & at an unbelievably difficult time they really meant a lot 🥰 I do think the system itself should change to not allow multiple usernames that are identical because it causes disappointment like when I thought I had… Read more »

That’s a very good point about overreaction, that must’ve set me off on the wrong path even more.

The thing is that obviously I did read the instructions but my brain works differently (I’m probably on the spectrum) and I tend to go by visual instructions more than text which I sometimes don’t necessarily absorb that well in long paragraphs. The totally irrelevant autumn themed visual clues and general autumn theme confused me on the first day (like it did for several people), and then I saw the clues as one long word (as that’s how they’re displayed) with a gap to fill in to complete the word. Come to think of it, I should’ve realised that no… Read more »

I totally understand Paul, I have Asperger’s, or as my family affectionately call it “arse burgers”, I’ve just realised why I am vegetarian! 🤣 I can read a sentence 10 times and it still not sink in. A lot of writing is hard, especially when it’s a massive chunk of text with no paragraphs. I am very visual too, slightly different to you but so many times my hubby will say something like “I’ve told you I went to the chemist”, but if I didn’t go, I won’t remember something it can’t picture. If he loses something, unlike the normal… Read more »

Oh yes, I’ve referred to it as arse burgers before lol. I don’t actually have any problems with reading or writing, I was very good at it right from the beginning of school but I’ve always had this tendency to get confused and tied up in knots over the simplest of things, and then not realise it until after I’ve committed to making a point about something. And to add further, I much prefer watching TV, films or You Tube videos to reading books, articles or instructions. My brain just switches off from reading too much.

Totally with you on the reading, I have never finished a proper book, I just can’t concentrate, people are able to emerse themselves in books, I’d like to know what that is like, to be able to completely switch life off and be in the moment, it sounds great. I have slight dyslexia, it was never picked up in school, but nothing ever was in the 80s, I will read out a sentence and realise it’s just wrong, I can close my eyes and see the words I read, but the page shows something different, I don’t quite understand how… Read more »

I think I might be dyslexic but it’s more to do with learning discrepancies generally, just getting muddled. Maths is more of a problem with me because it’s problem solving. However, I have this strange talent of being able to remember dates of things that have happened to me in the past (or sometimes events that have had nothing to do with me) and I can work out what the day was of any date. On the other hand, I have another useless talent of being able to count something physically infront of me and simultaneously count it in my… Read more »

The date thing is a common talent shared by people on the spectrum, I love dates, it is important for me to know them, I was baffled in the begining when I asked my hubby when his family’s birthdays were, he had no idea, when finally finding out my mother in law’s actual DOB, I worked back through the years and was horrified to realise we had bought his mum a toaster for her 50th! 🤣 I don’t mind maths, basic +, – etc. I don’t have a problem, but the more advanced stuff I never use, maybe if I… Read more »

With dates, perhaps similar to you, I seem to have a fascination of how many years it’s been since such a thing happened. I’ve also worked out a system of how to work out the days of dates, which is weird seeing as I really struggle with general maths problem solving.

@Paul I just want to say that none of my comment was directed at you and that’s why I made sure to put the name of the person who it was in reply to at the start, because they don’t seem to nest like they should and in fact replies can come lower down than other people’s posts, I don’t see how that’s logical! 🤔 But I wanted to pull him up on implying the site was generally confusing with what he put, and tbh if I remember rightly most of his comments tend to be at the negative kind… Read more »

It’s ok, I knew that your comment about being snarky wasn’t aimed at me. But to be fair, I think it’s more about individual questions/puzzles sometimes being confusing on this site, when sometimes they and visual clues can be interpreted differently or more openly to different answers. As many discussions have been about what certain answers could’ve or should’ve been.

@Paul – oh I couldn’t agree more about the multiple answers and the unfairness of it, please see my reply to Daniel above who everybody is thanking but I think the drip feeding of what is allowed as answers and so on makes this the most unfair competition I’ve known on this site and has taken a lot of the fun out of it 😣

I know what you mean but at least the other competition this month is much more straight forward, which requires definite either right or wrong answers. Hence why there are much less comments on that page.

Try not to think about it too much Sally, you will ruin the fun for yourself.

I don’t think they are very strict, I bet they even let the odd spelling mistake go, when it is clear what you meant. I have enough trouble remembering what I wrote, I sometimes look at the answer and don’t remember seeing the question, my memory used to be so sharp, now it’s more like the opposite end of the knife, that’s if I can remember where I even put the knife. 🤣

Thank you Alison, you are kind as always – I have just found it disappointing this month but that’s probably down to circumstances and my mood being the lowest ever been (and that is saying a lot) rather than a competition which really doesn’t mean much in the scheme of things and I might not be around to see the end of any way, and it’s only for a bloody tenner anyway! 😏 Ps. My memory is exactly the same, I constantly struggle to even remember the words for the most basic things which makes me sound like I have… Read more »

Hi Sally, your posts are really worrying, I like to be honest in what I say rather than skirt around things, but I fear you may need help, even though you probably feel “what point is help, no one really helps”. I honestly understand, I won’t go into it because this isn’t about me, but we only get one shot in this life, I often think about poor animals who are locked in a cage all their lives or suffer abuse and spend their whole life frightened, as humans we have the opportunity to make the best out of a… Read more »

I’ve just read my post again Sally and it doesn’t read how I meant it, it sounds quite blunt at the end which was meant to come across empowering, but it didn’t . The comparison with animals feels like I’m saying, well you should be grateful, which it wasn’t. To explain, I was trying to say, they can’t control what happens to them, which makes me sad and reminds me that we do get to control our lives, but by the same token, they don’t know a better life, so they don’t crave it, we know about the “what ifs”… Read more »