SCRAPINGS

It's that slightly alarming scraping sound of metal upon metal which first worries you...

A slight underlying noise as I shifted gear heading up the hill on my way home. That slight scraping which reminded me slightly of the noise a CD makes when it's not quite properly sitting in the tray of one of the cheaper "top-loading" players, if you're familiar with the concept.

It sounded as if it might be coming from the gearbox although, given that it was most noticeable during a gear change, it might well be coming from the clutch...

Or it might just be all in my imagination (shun, shun, shun...)

Either way, it seemed as if a - presumably expensive - pre-Christmas trip to the garage might be in order.

Then, on one particular morning, I did wake up pondering upon my fluid levels. I mean, I often do that, but this time I was thinking about the car. The sound might simply be, I reasoned, because the brake and clutch fluid were getting rather low but, given that it was serviced a mere two months ago, that seemed highly unlikely unless a leak had developed and a leak, of course, also would mean that a visit to see a trained mechanic would be necessary anyway.

It's like taking a reluctant dog to see the vet.

You put it off for as long as you can, but...

Of course after trying to ignore the - admittedly intermittent - noise for the better part of a fortnight, I finally caved in on my day off and popped over to the garage which, rather naturally couldn't hear the noise at all because it refused point blank to manifest itself as we drove up and down the road on a "demonstration run" trying to make it do what I claimed it was doing.

Naturally, as I drove away again, a huge scraping noise erupted as I changed gear from second into third but, obviously, like that proverbial tree in the forest, it didn't happen because there wasn't a mechanic around to hear it.

The garage was, of course, "snowed under" with work this week anyway, so it was unlikely that they'd have been able to schedule it in for me even if I'd insisted, although I did decide to book it in for a check-up next week anyway.

Oh well, they assured me that it wasn't likely to be much of a problem and I scuttled off back to my life hoping against all hope that it would, at least, make it through the week.

After all, this time of year really is not a good one to be left in a transportless state, although, like everything in life, there really is never a good time, is there...?