Wiper motor

The aforesaid has been squeaking out its death-knell. Just as the rains begin. The windscreen scuttle floods and soaks the wiper engine. Translating all that into garage Italian is exhausting but Stefano interrupted the workflow - a mystery in itself - to prise apart the motor and regrease all moving parts. Meanwhile Domenico was making a new part for some piece of machinery brought in on one of the lathes out back.

It’s a system that involves a lot of sometimes rather uncomfortable hanging around getting in the way of the three guys at work. It’s a bit like having a walk on part in a silent opera whose plot line is obscure and yet vaguely knowable. Tools clatter down on the steel bench, characters walk in and out and sometimes just disappear exasperated or able to read the runes of availability.

There seems to be no formal mode of task or client selection. One mills, edges toward and back, both supplicant and aloof, familiar and distant, intimate and beyond or only just inside the pale.

And yet jobs are finished, cars fixed, conversations had, the black kitten skittering up into the engine of our car, beneath the raised bonnet.

I’m back there in two days time for winter tires. It’s snowing in the Alps and 26 degrees in Sicily.

Later I cracked on with the windows. First coat of varnish and more stripping. I’ll be here for the duration.