What my subconscious is telling me

Back from a long weekend in London: went down for Uncle Ted's birthday lunch, and had a fine time: lunch in a Chinese restaurant, where the staff were helpful and relaxed, and very tolerant of a mass of cousins drifting from table to table, and a party whose ages ranged from 90+ to 3 months. We stayed in south London with durham_rambler's niece and her partner, in the flat they bought at the end of last year, and that, too, was good.

Here's the thing: driving through London is always a bit of a challenge, and there was a certain amount of navigating areas we don't know well, in evening light with the sun in our eyes, or simply finding the turning we'd planned to take barred. Which was frustrating, but also showed me unexpected fragments of the city: colourful murals, fine old redbrick libraries, shops with wonderful gold lettering on the glass. The low winter sun caught and accentuated all these details, and as always I yearned to stop and take photographs. We never can, because for one thing, if we stopped every time I wanted to take a photograph we would never arrive, and for another if you try to get out of the car in the middle of London, you're half a borough away before you can park the car. More than this, my camera is currently receiving treatment in the camera clinic.

And last night I dreamed durham_rambler and I were in Paris, and I was about to take a photograph when I remembered that I didn't have my camera, it was in the clinic. I was very distressed.