Ev 1535

[hankir]

The clues have one extra letter in wordplay.

Small balls of water locally in channels of rivers (5)
?EADS, extra letter could be E. Beads? Leads?

Retrograde holiday haunt introducing primarily icky sweetener (6)
T??O?E, extra letter R?

Thanks.

[Neveracrossword]

Retrograde... Triose, sugar from Resort, dropping the T and reversing, with the 'i' from Icky (primarily).

Beads works in the final grid, so I didn't bother parsing that!

[ProfessorMaisie]

BEADS + TRIOSE

[Toorak]

2 triose - I(cky) inside (r)esort reversed

[ProfessorMaisie]

'channels of river' = BEDS 'water locally'/dialect = [e]A ['e' extra].

[hankir]

Thanks NAC, ProfessorM and Toorak.
I now have the message from extra letters, instructions on 18 cells and one poet.
Have not filled the perimeter as too many blank cells.(20?)
Trying to find the second poet.

What is the first letter in top row?

[ProfessorMaisie]

C

[hankir]

Thanks ProfessorM.
Found the 18 cells.

The last word coming up in column 1 is 7 letters ending in ED.
But the space provided is 6 cells so ED can become S. But that would be changing the line in the poem.

[Neveracrossword]

Hankir, the D was in the version I found - it's the old-fashioned usage....

[hankir]

Thanks NAC.
It can be xxxxxs or xxxxx'd.

[Neveracrossword]

Thanks, Hankir - I was luckier, coming across the version that I did.