Close to the end

Picaroon is one of the Guardian cryptic setters whom I find most challenging. Because of time zones, the newest crossword for me at breakfast time is the "day before", as it is not yet midnight in the UK. So today I was solving yesterday's puzzle. 

By the time I had finished breakfast and needed to get packed and head for the hospital, I had solved only a handful of clues. The most satisfying was 9 across. The next chance I had to look at it was over lunch, and despite interruptions from colleagues needing to discuss things with me, I progressed rather more rapidly and reached this point.

I took this photo shortly after getting home from work, when I thought I could finish it before our evening meal. These were clues for which no solutions had suggested themselves to me. After taking the photo, I sat down and almost immediately answers came to me. 

Part of the fascination I have with cryptic crosswords is the way that when I lay a puzzle aside and do other things, often intense brain work, it seems that some aspect of my brain is continuing to process the clues. Almost always, I return with an understanding of what is the wrong tack, and therefore the correct solution can just jump out at me. 

So it was again today. After a day of dealing with the intense emotions of some patients, other patients struggling with the implications of age and infirmity, teaching and guiding a bright young medical student, drawing out the knowledge of the registrar, and writing the notes that always seem to take so long, sitting quietly with the puzzle from the morning was a real attraction. The unsolved clues proved to have been subconsciously solved or at least the path towards the solution identified.

Well before we went out onto the deck with the evening meal, the puzzle was complete.