Puzzling

My mother recently sent me the index I wrote to my extensive  Cricket magazine collection, which I created for my kids when they were little. I had completely forgotten I'd created it. I was in my 20s when I did this! All hand-written into an index book (with alphabet tags on the sides of the pages). I used symbols to indicate whether an entry was an article, recipe, activity etc. The numbers are (volume, issue) - no page number included. In 1982 I wrote an index for a microwave cookbook that didn't have one, for my future mother-in-law, when I was 18. And I didn't know indexing was a 'real profession' until a couple of years ago, just before I did my training! LOL

My apologies for being rather invisible for a while, I've had two overseas trips in the past month! Anyway, I'm back again, and will try to heed my daughter's command to "Stay, Mummy, STAY!" for the rest of the year (although New York is beckoning). Last week I attended my first indexing conference, the biennial conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Indexers (ANZSI) . Wow, that sounds so exciting , I hear you mutter sarcastically. Well, let me tell you, it was awesome . I met so many fabulous, intelligent, funny, and generous people (there were around 80 of us at the conference), learnt so many interesting things, found out how to expand my indexing business and improve my skills — and all in the delightful environs of Wellington, New Zealand . Wellington is similar to Canberra — the national capital that no-one is aware of. No, Sydney's not the capital of Australia, my hometown Canberra is. And Auckland isn't capital of New Zeal...