The Mercedes Repair of Life.

You may be wondering what happened with the Mercedes bumper repair, and incidentally why I’m here writing this and not looking skyward gazing at rust. I read the manual. First remove inner front wheel arch cover. Bolts are positioned here, here, two here and one here. Though the car is obviously built to a different design I understand enough from the small, grey, fuzzy pictures printed on toilet paper. The cover has broken away from two bolts so no problem there. A third is easy. The fourth must be behind the wheel, which is on full right lock. No prob. A simple turn on the steering wheel. The steering won’t move without the engine on, which won't start because the battery is flat. But there is just enough to start the alarm going. Having had previous experience of this I go inside to get a towel to wrap around the sounder. It still meeps but in a weak helpless sort of way rather than its usual, ‘I’m being stolen, call the police’ way. I take out the battery and get my trusty charger, which appears to be undecided about the batteries condition, possibly not wishing to intrude on its pleasant slumbers. I get my even trustier volt meter which shows some volts but more importantly provokes the charger into rising to the occasion. In the fullness of time I will replace the battery, reset the alarm, key in the radio's anti-theft code, turn the wheel, undo the nut and find the bumpers plastic lugs have broken off. I will then lather the whole thing in Araldite, which won’t last but will get it past the unsuspecting MOT man. Until then I’m writing this and will no doubt have to continue counselling Mothermouse’s iPod on the vagaries of real life. (whos software seems to be written by teenagers who expect everything to run smoothly and go into flustered denial if it doesn't.)