On reflection...

I think it's fairly safe to assume that the feathered critter that decided to tweet it's last before launching at my wing mirror a few weeks ago has gone to the big aviary in the sky by now. If not, I would probably be on my way to the same spot now with a size 10 in hand preparing to secure a similar fate for it.

In fact, I actually quite like birds (yes, the feathered kind too) and could probably never have gone through with the aforementioned threat, but equally could never have forseen the trouble that resulted from that morning's incident.

The day it happened, I rang the dealership as soon as I got to the office and my mate told me he would see what he could do. You may have read on here that a few weeks later I gave up on un-answered messages, ordered a replacement on ebay and fitted it myself, which only left me with having to get the outer shell sprayed to match the rest of the car.

Apparently, up until a couple of years ago Ford colours were easy to track down but recently they decided to get cryptic and whatever references I could find could have been for one of a dozen different colours. Back on to my mate at the dealership when he suggested "well why don't you drop it in and I'll get one of the lads to spray it the right colour for you".

Very gratefully, I dropped the shell off agreeing to leave it a couple of days. Two days later, I called in and apparently they hadn't yet had a chance to spray it. The following Monday still nothing. The following Friday I called in to pick it up (whether painted or not), we went to the paintshop to be told "Oh good, I've been waiting for you to come in so I could match the colour to your car". Shame I didn't know this earlier really. Anyhoo, it was being done on the cheap as a favour so I swallowed my pride and agreed to leave it for a couple more days.

Tonight I collected it and to be fair, it looked great but apparently needed another hour or so to finish drying properly. Having got the thing home and patiently waited until after tea before fitting it, I noticed that a small wire had become trapped beneath the fitting plate so as I had a little time to spare this evening, I might as well put it right. When will I learn?

All came apart again very easily until I dropped the mounting bolt inside the door. Oh bollocks. Another 10 minutes unscrewing , fiddling, shoving and generally pissing about with the door interior, only to discover that the easiest way of getting it out was probably to take the entire door off and turn it upside down. Even if I was going to seriously entertain that idea, it had started to get dark so the only thing to do was replace the door interior, disconnect the mirror wiring and removing it again.

So tomorrow I begin the quest to find a replacement bolt to secure the wing mirror again - I wonder how many weeks that's going to take...