Car parking: Shopper spends six years using each spot at supermarket
- Published
Gareth Wild, with his daughter Aubrey, started his parking experiment in 2015
A man from south-east London made his weekly supermarket shop "less mundane" by parking in every available space, a challenge he took six years to finish.
Gareth Wild, 39, from Bromley, posted the results of his project on social media, which have been liked by more than 100,000 people.
Mr Wild explained that he wanted to add fun to the monotony of parking.
"I do like a good spreadsheet, but I didn't expect this kind of reaction," the company director said.
"For the last six years I've kept a spreadsheet listing every parking spot I've used at the local supermarket in a bid to park in them all," he tweeted.
"This week I completed my magnum opus!"
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The father-of-two decided in 2015 to turn his weekly Sainsbury's shop into something more purposeful.
Using his spreadsheets, and Google Maps, he noted the 211 spots available to him - with disability spaces and motorcycle bays excluded - dividing them into categories A-F.
"It kind of feels like the old Panini sticker albums, but a really boring version of it," Mr Wild said. "It's a collector's thing, I suppose."
Picking a favourite spot is tricky, but for him, "it's all about C1".
He joked: "The moment you drive in, it's the first one you see past the restricted bays. Right at the front, near the trolleys. Every criteria is met."
Gareth Wild used satellite pictures to divide the car park into zones
Mr Wild completed his challenge on 24 April by slotting his Skoda Octavia into F20, which he described as "a pig to get in".
He added: "I don't want to make out this was too big a deal, but there was a moment of elation."
His social media thread received hundreds of replies and questions from people wanting to know the best space to use, among other things.
"It turns out there's a lot of questions about car parks," he said.
"I don't think I've ever seen a thread on Twitter where it's been so unanimously positive.
"I don't expect that from Twitter, so it's been refreshing"
C1 was his preferred spot in the Bromley car park
Mr Wild said his wife Kathryn has been "always really supportive" while four-year-old daughter Aubrey regularly joined her dad on parking missions.
"It sort of became a thing that we would do - having her along is a bit like daddy-daughter time, you know?"
As for his next challenge, he hinted it could be another supermarket down the road.
"I've got my eye on Lidl. But how do you go up from this?" he said.
"Maybe no more car parks. I'm probably done."