Well, not really a challenge; more something to pass the time.

A good few years ago, Mrs P and I started counting car number plates. Sounds like a whole barrel of laughs, doesn't it?

Actually, it isn't just counting number plates - there's slightly more to it than that.

Slightly.

It's a bit like train spotting, but a whole lot less interesting...

To get you going, you need to see a car with a number 1 on its plate. Just a number one - the 1 in a 12 or a 51 won't do. It has to be just a 1.

Like T1 GHF, for instance.

Once you've seen a 1, not unsurprisingly, you move on to a 2. And of course that can't be the two from an 02, or a 62...

And them's the rules.

Well, except that you have to see them in order, so if you've got a 6 tootling down the motorway in front of you, you can't count it until you've got the 5 you're actually looking for.

When I say we started years ago, we kind of gave up because we forgot all about it having got to somewhere in the middle 80s. And it took a long time to get that far, though to be fair, working from home limits the opportunities. I'd imagine if you were a motorway-pounding rep you'd probably get quite a few a day, but the higher the numbers the more difficult it gets.

It's actually become easier than it was back then because of the increase in personalised plates, and the way the numbering system changed after the DVLA's alphabetical sequence suffix ran out of letters in 2001.

So if you're prepared to stick at it, once you get to 10 you'll have a pretty easy run until you get to 18, and similarly there'll be another adrenaline-fuelled rush from 51 to 66 (67 as of the first of September).

I won't pretend that it's the most exciting car-based game ever, because it isn't, but it's an acceptable subsitute when you're sick to death of I-Spy and pub cricket.

Anyway, because we couldn't actually remember where we had got to the first time we tried, we decided to start again. I got 1 and 2 within two days, and 3, 4 and 5 were in the Waitrose car park* the weekend before last, though we had to do two laps to get them in the correct order.

So we're up to 6. I saw 7 the day before yesterday and an 8 this morning, but I can't use them because of not having seen that elusive 6.

I could have cheated, but the only person I'd be cheating would be me, and I just couldn't live with the guilt...

* The Waitrose car park is clearly a good place to do this, because lots of posh folks with personalised plates go there. I must make it clear - in case anyone thought that we were a posh folk with a personalised plate ourselves - that we don't shop at Waitrose all the time.

Sometimes we go to Marks & Spencer instead.

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Zitat

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Pepe Le Pew * The Waitrose car park is clearly a good place to do this, because lots of posh folks with personalised plates go there. I must make it clear - in case anyone thought that we were a posh folk with a personalised plate ourselves - that we don't shop at Waitrose all the time.:-

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Now hold on a minute. That's a bit of a cheat as, according to your map coordinates, you live in Waitrose Car Park

By the way, if you can move off 6 and find another 43 sequential numbers by Thursday, you can bag our 50

Randa

ps. not many folk are using the map facility. You don't have to put your exact location, just the local Lidl car park, or if you're posh, the nearest Waitrose car park.

Zitat

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Quote Pepe le Pew:- So we're up to 6. I saw 7 the day before yesterday and an 8 this morning, but I can't use them because of not having seen that elusive 6

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You've really started something now. Mrs R started looking out for sequential numbers on the journey home from the meet and, during a short journey today, she moved off 5 by spotting 3 cars within a few miles of one another, sporting the number 6.

Would you believe it. Just as we were turning off the main road into our lane, there was a number 7 parked there so we are now up to 8 ( the Royal "We" by the way as I always keep my eyes on the road ).

Randa

Quote: eribanaut wrote in post #7

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On the continent we always used to spot Norbert Destrangle lorries with a shout of NOBERT, unfortunately they have been taken over by Xpo logistics, it just doesn't seem the same.
Dave

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