Out [of Sorts?]

I referenced my dad [yet again] in last night's post, and something turned up today that made think of the old man with psychological reference to myself. Anyone who knows me knows that I ain't the tidiest person when it comes to most things, despite my reverence for, for instance, library catalogues and the Dewey Decimal System, to name but one small area of interest to me. When it comes to my own personal spaces; my desks, workshop, etc., I tend to accumulate stuff until it becomes uncomfortable to work in the space: at which time I will clear up, re-organise and move on, probably to frustratingly lose track of some momentarily important thing or another. With other things, though, I am somewhat OCD. Anyway, I drove up to the Stretton Fox to pick Jane up today on return from her visiting family in Carnforth; a trip I do many times a year at the moment. The Fox is conveniently halfway for a rendezvous and is a pleasant watering hole for an hour's break and a welcome pint of decent ale.

However, whilst seated in our usual spot this afternoon, I saw and remarked upon something I've not noticed before as I was sat the other side of the table to normal. When the place was refurbished some years ago now, it was refitted with old-school cast iron radiators for the winter heating. The one I caught sight of today threw that inner OCD self into a quiet fit: it was higher on its right-hand side by around half an inch or so, meaning that it sat at an angle. As the thing is essentially a set of vertical bars, and as it is hung against a wall of vertically-panelled wood, the effect is, to my eye, extremely jarring, and not in a good, Bridget Riley sort of way, either. The reason for it being out of kilter? The plumber that had fitted the thing had failed to cut the half-inch pipe feeding the right hand side to the right length, meaning that neither was the radiator straight, nor was the joint at its union properly aligned. As with me, this would have done my dad's head in on both counts: the difference between the two of us? Dad would probably have offered to fix it for free there and then, in the old days...