A blistering weekend of number plate spotting. After a record-equalling four on Friday, I followed it up with an unprecedented second four in a day on Saturday, followed by two more on Sunday. Keep going at this rate and I'll be finished by the end of the year!
I feel that perhaps I should recapitulate the Consecutive Number Plate Spotting saga for those latecomers who may have missed the early editions of this journal. My doom was sealed when I read the rules as listed on Richard Herring's gloriously funny website. (I advise that you stop reading this rubbish and head over there instead, particularly to the Warming Up section. Try this entry - http://www.richardherring.com/warmingup/warmingup.php?id=437 - to my eyes an almost impossibly hilarious account of a simple trip to the supermarket.) The idea of Consecutive Number Plate Spotting is that you spot number plates consecutively - it's not the most cryptic of pastimes. You start at 1 and you keep going until you reach 999. I only started because I was curious as to how far I would get before I got bored or simply forgot to look. I imagined I would get to about 22, then several months later would realise I'd neglected to carry on and wouldn't even remember which number I'd got to. I would laugh it off and get on with my life.
If only.
What I didn't realise was that Consecutive Number Plate Spotting was set to join the elite band of my moderate, not-especially-debilitating obsessive compulsive tendencies (otherwise restricted to locks - windows, doors, padlocks - and pulled threads on clothes). Although I have had periods of more intense activity and some lulls when I have lacked motivation, I haven't been able to free myself from the mysterious allure of the number plate. It started as a frivolous bit of displacement activity to while away the journey to work, around the time that my youngest was born. He just turned four and I'm on 378. Aware as I am that the only route to freedom from CNPS's iron grip is to stay the course, my ambition is to get it finished before he's embarrassed to know me.
GoingSomewhere
I didn't think you'd be able to prevent yourself from writing about the number plates. Actually I'm glad you did since I wasn't aware (or had forgotten) that Richard Herring set you on this path. As for the link tp his page that you so generously provide, I get the following message - "Forbidden - You are not allowed to access this page", so sadly I am unable to read what I am sure is a literary treat.