Diary Of A Busker Day 2535 Friday May 2nd 2025 Winchester.
Yesterday was 25 degrees – the hottest day this year so far and today is 23 and it takes me a long time to get accustomed to, mainly due to my fingers expanding in the heat, which is something that hasn’t happened for months. It’s only when I’m about to leave the first spot (Buttercross) that I’m getting used to it. Basically, it means I make a lot of mistakes and muted notes because my King Charles sausage fingers are touching strings they shouldn’t be. Still, it didn’t prevent a young woman from listening for a few minutes on the bench then donating a beautiful purple £20 note. She then blew me a kiss as she was walking off. I reckon I’m in there!
Before I started at the top spot, I had a look at The Square but there wasn’t much doing. In other words, hardly anyone at the outside tables. However, as it’s nearing dinner time it’s a lot busier. I do the same amount of time as I did round the corner, an hour and a half. Not a lot of chat, which is fine by me…a man came up – ‘I see you’ve got a Squier. When Covid struck, Mike Rutherford was stranded in Australia and he couldn’t get to his usual guitars so he bought a couple of Squiers, for about two hundred dollars. He upgraded them (obviously) but when he played over here later, he was playing them, you know.’ I said ‘Well, this one is great – I’ve got two. I mean, I’ve got a lot of guitars and some of them are quite expensive but this one is the best. I mean it’s the best for playing this sort of stuff, and out here, because it really brings out the melody – the high strings really ring out…and it was really cheap so if anything happens, like if I crash on the bike, I’m not worried too much about the guitar.’