finally On 16th of February the sun came out for the fist time warmming the climate sufficently to change my xantia steering column, it was beautiful day and all went reasonably well except to say for shearing one of the lower colunm mounting bolts, fortunately there was enough thread left to put a nut on and attach the column again.
I booked the MOT for the 19th of Feb blissfully unaware that the flamin headlamps would steam up when it snowed at dinnertine on the 18th.
when I went out to the car I notice a side light bulb gone.
so not taking into account the very cold air I opened the bonnet and removed the cover plate at the back of the offending head lamp.(NOT A GOOD IDEA)
replaced the bulb and drove to town.
when I got home I noticed that the headlamp was misted up inside
so I removed the lamp dried it inside with a hairdryer and put it back in the car. then I noticed that the other headlamp had moisture in it, by now I was cursing the snow quite a bit. 
so I removed the second headlamp and dried it out and put it back, the snow was getting worse by the minute.
Arrgghh
the first headlamp was misting up again, so I removed it again dried it out and reversed the seal on the back cover plate, it seemed to seal up this time, I had to remove the other headlamp a second time to also reverse the seal as I reasembled the headlamp I noticed that the mainbeam lamp had blown and I didnt have a replacement, it was now 4pm the car was in bits and town is 7 miles awayGrrrrr, fortunately my father had one and saved me a lot of hassle going out for a drive in the snow in rush hour.
it was extreemly cold a wet out there the car was carefully put under the carport for the night whilst I checked for fogging of the headlamps every hour or so until midnight.
fortunately this mornning at 9am the car passed its MOT straight through and no advisories.
all that time spent out in the snow de-fogging headlamps I might just as well have gone out in the cold to change the steering colunm.
the motto to this rant is never remove the backplate access plate of your headlamps to change a bulb outside in freezing temperatures, it is probably far better to take the headlamp out and change the bulb indoors where the air should be warmer and you wont let any moist air into the headlamp housing.
