I Parallel Park

Once, I lived in a one-way street with tightly-bound on-street parking. I was an expert at parallel parking on the left-hand side of the road.  Looking over my shoulder, I could, thanks to power steering, nudge my way into a space just longer than my car and end up with it neatly straight, placed at a few inches distance from the kerb.  I might wake up the next morning to a broken wing mirror and a curry splatted onto the windscreen, but at least I knew my angles.

I thought this skill for keeping things on the straight and narrow was, like making brownies, one I had acquired for life. But it turns out it was just for particular situations, and my son kindly pointed out to me the other day that, whilst my brownies remain roughly square, my parking has become skewed.

Parallel parking is an occasional activity these days - I travel by train as much as possible, and when I do have to park, it's usually in a marked out space, or a street-side so ample and so generous that I can drive into a space headfirst.

For reasons of basketball, though, last week I had to get into a small space: mercifully left-hand side. It took me five, or maybe seven, attempts of backing in, checking the kerb, realising I was adrift, heading out to start all over again. My son sat patiently with me throughout, occasionally opening his passenger door to look down and see where we were up to.

It was a companionable sort of dance this - me edging in, him checking, me edging out, him offering encouragement, me edging in, him checking, us chuckling, me edging out, him commenting on his game's highlights to pass the time before I edged in again. 

Back home, we concluded I need more practice, or less practice. Either way, I'm up for it.