A postman's nightmare

Here is a curious thing. I saw an advertisement for a NGO handicraft shop and garden cafe in the same street as our office which sounded like a nice place to go for lunch. So I set off in the mid-day heat to find it. Our office is No. 10, and the cafe was at No. 18, so it should not have been too far. Half an hour later, I got to the end of the street, feeling hot and sweaty, but having failed to find the cafe. I had looked at the numbers of the houses in the street carefully, but there seemed not to be a No. 18. The sequence of the even house-numbers, starting from our office, was as follows:

10, 14, 8, 20, 22, 10E, 26B, 26A, 28, 30, 29, 16, 16bis, 16A, 16, 24, 42, 22B, 24, 24B, 26Eo, 52, 54, 56, 58, 30AEo, 36.

The sequence returning along the opposite side of the road was:

31, 59, 57, 55, 53, 51, 49, 47, 35, 25, 186c, 25A, 23B, 23B, 21A, 25(19), 33, 27, 24, 31, 29, 15b, 11e", 11e', 11eo, 217, 217 (separate house), 21, 19, 17, 15, 13.

I suppose some mathematically genius might be able to work out a formula to arrive at this sequence, but it beats me.

It seems that you are free to choose the number of your house and that certain numbers are more sought after than others since they bring with them good luck.

No such luck for the poor unfortunate postman - which perhaps explains why you have to go to fetch you post from the post office even though it is addressed to your street address!

By the way, it turns out that No. 18 is between No. 20 and No. 8. Its number is missing because the house is being rebuilt, the cafe having long since closed down.

Update: 25 May 2006
This morning I was called downstairs by reception to find an Irish lady who had just arrived in PP and was looking to meet someone who definitely was not a member of our staff. It turned out her meeting was at No. 10E, not No. 10 where the taxi had brought her. After consulting my blog, I was able to tell her that she should find No. 10E between Nos. 22 and 26A on the same side of the street within walking distance. She seemed perplexed but grateful, and did not stop to ask me why I knew so precisely the sequence. Probably there is no one else in the whole of the city who could have saved her a trek along the whole of the street...