Yesterday afternoon my camera died ....  I'm not crying, there are no boxes of kleenex required, but it chose to 'pass' just as I arrived at an appointment to take pictures of a house, and yes ... I felt pretty foolish.
I have never had a really expensive fancy camera.  And I don't have the patience to learn how to use anything too complex.  This one was just a Fuji..... I loved it.

It lived in my handbag; on the car seat beside me; it came away on holiday with me; it's taken planes, trains and boats; been to Paris for lunch, to the market shopping and of course around every early morning brocante fair.

It has been dropped, rained on, dribbled over (by a horse, not me!), sat on and I'm pretty sure Ghetto pee-ed on it too, but that didn't stop it turning out tens of thousands of pictures, and being a totally reliable companion for the past three years or so. My camera is absolutely one of the things that I cannot leave home without.

And that is why this is short ... I am off to buy the replacement ... the salesman will need to be patient as I try to explain the sort of pictures I want to take, the way I want a camera to feel, the fact that it is part of my everyday life .... He'll want to talk about ISO and shutter speed, and I'll be wondering about pictorial atmosphere, and the weight of the camera in my hand ... this is not going to be easy!  I'll tell you how it goes.  
Wish me luck!

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