Strange dream

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I dreamed my wife and I were in London.
Some of our friends from the sword troupe where there at the same time and invited us over to the house they were renting for a dinner party.
The house was along the Thames, so we went down by the river to get there.

When we got there we saw the house they were renting was on the other side, but there were no bridges. To get there you had to summon a "water shuttle" which was a very small boat someone would row over to you, you’d get on, and it would take you across.

These were VERY small. The size of a surf board. But, they were shaped to look like larger boats like cruise ships, air craft carriers, and container ships. Still the size of a surf board.
My wife and I took separate ones across as the driver and one passenger were all that could fit.
The river was much smaller than it is in real life in London. About the width of a two lane road, which is a tiny fraction of the reality. But, much to far to jump across, so you needed the boat.

We had a nice dinner with our friends and it was after dark when we were ready to leave.

I went out to the front of the house, where there was a landing for the water shuttles, and waved to the boat man across the river.

He pointed at the empty dock in front of him and shrugged.
The dock he was on was connected to a hospital. He pointed at that, and made a moving gesture with his hand, so I took it to mean all the boats were off being used as ambulances.
I pointed at my wrist to try and find out how long it would take to get back.
He jumped in the river and swam over to me.

"The boats will be gone all night," he told me. "But, I can bring you across with the water shoes."
He pulled out two large shoes from behind him. They looked to be hollow so they would float.
"I don’t think I could stay balanced on them while you pulled me," I said.
"You don’t stand on the water, you sink to your buoyancy level, so you are stable," he replied.
I saw they two shoes did not match.
"It is OK," he said. "They have the same buoyancy."

I put them on my feet and stepped off into the river.
I immediately sank up to by shoulders in the water. But, I didn’t go under.
The left shoe came off my foot and in the dream I saw it floating down to the bottom of the river from an underwater angle.
"I lost one of the shoes," I said. "It fell off and sank."
"It will find its buoyancy and come back," he said.
After a short time, it floated back up and hit the bottom of my foot. I had another underwater view in the dream of it coming up and neatly fitting to the bottom of my foot.
I slid my toes into the strap and indicated I was ready.

He towed me across the river at an angle. As we passed the center of the river, I could feel my feet hit sea weed on the bottom. Again, I had an underwater view of my feet sweeping through seaweed coming up from the bottom.
I was worried I’d loose a shoe, but they stayed on.

When we got to the other side, one of the small boats had come back and was pulled up in front of the hospital. A nurse had come out and was dealing with the person it had brought in.
I grabbed the side of the dock next to her and hung on.
"I’m dealing with a patient," she said to me. "I don’t have time for you water taxi people."
"No problem," I said. "I’m just going to climb up on the dock next to you to get out of the water."
"Whatever, mate. I’m not going to help you."

I pulled myself up, took off the water shoes and handed them to the water taxi person who began swimming over to my wife on the other side.
"My wife will hate this," I said.

Dream Ends

I have no idea what this is about at all. The people we were visiting in the dream were some of the folks at our Christmas party last week. And, I did talk with one of them briefly on a video call yesterday. But, nothing was said about renting houses and swimming across rivers.

We live on a major route to the local hospital and are under the landing pattern for their helicopter ambulance. So, the sounds of one or more of those happen at least once a night.
But, we’ve lived here for 29 years, so why it would make me dream of it now is not clear.

The "water shoes" reminded me of toy "moon shoes" I had when I was a kid half a century ago. I couldn’t find those exact ones, but there was something similar on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Big-Time-Toys-Trampolines-colors/dp/B000N5OIE6?ref_=ast_sto_dp