While raindrops danced

I had so much trouble with this picture. I'd taken it spontaneously, while on one of my usual walks home from anywhere. The late-afternoon light had come up around the corner and smacked me in the face, and I had to try and snatch some of it to keep. What else are pocket cameras for?

But when I got to editing the shot, I found so many things wrong with it.

I wished that those wheelie bins were not there.

I wished those people had parked their cars somewhere else.

I wished the power pole was a few feet behind me so it wouldn't spoil my shot. And the stop sign -- was it even necessary? Don't drivers know well enough to stop behind the yellow line, especially on steeply sloping blind corners?

I wished that my camera was sensitive enough to take in the sight that first got my attention: raindrops being swept upwards in spirals by the strong wind, each drop dressed in luminous gold by the sunlight.

I nearly talked myself out of saving the picture at all, out of posting it here.

But which is worse: to unintentionally capture these unglamorous images of dustbins and strangers' cars; or to give myself no reminder of the moment? To take the best shot I can get, or not to try at all and risk forgetting that life offers us such lovely sights for free?

I think these are the questions I am at present asking, about bigger things than sunlight on street corners. The choice lies open, whether to wait for circumstances and people and equipment to be perfect -- or to accept what is offered to me, and bring home the beauty.