I can see clearly now

I have to be careful in my subject matter today not to come across as either ignorant, sexist or predictable.

I am well practiced in such things regularly acheiving at least 66.66% of the above in my everyday life, or as they say "two out of three ain't bad".

The subject is windscreen wiper blades.

For a few weeks I have tolerated and then just plain blanked out the horrible thumping  sound that well worn, or rather knackered wiper blades make as they are dragged across the windscreen. Brief respite can be had by a liberal squirt of screenwash to lubricate but soon the racket continues. Add to the soundtrack the complete inability of the wipers to effectively wipe and you have a motoring incident just waiting to happen either through distraction or from a streak-induced lack of a forward view.


To those with a mechanical and practical mind the solution to the problem is easy.

It is a case of going to a motor accessory department, purchasing and then self-fitting the wipers.

I possess neither of these skillsets.

That is confusing to me bearing in mind that I should have inherited a wonderful aptitude for motoring mechanics from my Father given the many hours that he spent happily in the shadow of a car bonnet, inside a wheel arch or just laid out flat on his back tinkering under a succession of family vehicles.

He tried his best to introduce me to basic tasks such as changing a spark plug, headlamp bulb, checking the levels of oil, coolant and water in the engine compartment.

I am embarrassed to say that I was not really interested.

I would like to explain this away by saying that I had a dream when I was 15 years old that I was destined always to have a company car, fully serviced, maintained and changeable after a couple of years. That would be a convenient explanation indeed but otherwise a complete fabrication.

In fact since passing my driving test relatively late at the age of 21 in 1984 I have been fortunate indeed to have had only company cars, to date seventeen of them and with the next to arrive within a few weeks.

Apart from filling them with fuel, keeping tyre pressures up and responding to any persistent dashboard warning lights (my personal best is four illuminated simultaneously) I have not really had to get my hands oily or grubby.

The recent proliferation of hand car washes even means that I do not have to do it myself thus freeing up a lot of time at weekends.

So to the subject of wiper blades. It was time today to buy some new ones for the windscreen.

I consulted the little booklets in Halfords which listed car makes and models against reference numbers for their own brand and the giant component manufacturer, Bosch. With pair of elongated packets in hand I made for the checkout.

The lady at the desk asked if I would like someone to fit them for me at nominal charge .I declined feeling that it would not be a difficult thing to do but joked that I would of course drive around the corner from the shop before I did it.

I sat out front in the car park for quite a few minutes studying the fitting instructions and diagrams on the unopened packets. Blurry eyes refocused between the small print and from staring through the windscreen at the dilapidated existing blades.

I could not see how the bit that was fixed to the car could marry to the new parts.I realised that I had been hasty in turning down the genuinely kind (but commercially motivated) offer of assistance from the shop staff. My male pride would have to give way to safe motoring practice and I returned to request a fitting by an expert.

The lady at the desk was gracious on seeing me again which I took as reassurance that I was certainly not the first and would not be the last man to show a complete ineptitude when it came to motoring accessories.

The young woman in her hi-viz jacket who actually fitted the blades went out of her way to conceal the fact that I had selected the wrong versions in the first place and in a slight of hand switched them for the correct ones.

She made the whole thing look effortless.

They train them well at Halfords although no doubt the manual has as large a section on how to deal with male motoring egos as all of the practical aspects of keeping a car on the road.