This year marks a once in a lifetime event that only happens once every one hundred years.

I’m talking about significant dates from a numerical  perspective. It’s not quite on the scale of 11.11.1111 – but close. This year brings some fun date combinations such as 9.10.11 and also 11.11.11

A recent article I read in The Economist highlighted the fact that the number 11 is significant with numerologists as although it isn’t officially regarded as a palindrome itself, it generates them like no other number. I particularly liked this massive palindromic example…

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

So, having read this article a few weeks back, I spotted that my faithful old car was about to hit a similar milestone. If I’d spotted it 100 miles earlier I may have been able to capture the whole digital read-out filled with the numeral ‘1’ As it was, I managed to capture the fleeting moment all but one of the digits lit up. And then it was gone – a moment that could never be captured again and an effort I can only repeat if I run my car the same distance again (which is not infeasible as I had a Nissan once that I took well over 200K miles).

Anyway, I’m not a superstitious person but I can’t help thinking capturing this 111111 moment in the year that brings us 11.11.11 is an omen of some sorts. Obviously I’m hoping it will be a good omen but after what could only be described as one of the toughest weekends I think I’ve ever had, I’m not so sure.

(Note to future self – please log any weekends that were more complicated and exhausting than this one)

Basically, between supporting a wife who can barely walk at the moment due to a foot operation during the week, ferrying my kids from one event to another, spending 5 long hours during late Saturday night and early Sunday morning in Southampton’s casualty department with my aged mother who had a serious blood clot in her leg and then trying to curtail the deranged behaviour of my equally aged mother-in-law – it is a weekend I would not like to repeat any time soon. I seem to be experiencing that classic middle age ‘squeeze’ at the moment so Software SnakeOil Salespeople, Social Media Gurus and Web Engagement Preachers beware – I am more likely to be ‘enraged’ rather than ‘engaged’ right now 😉