Diary Of A Busker Day 2563 Monday June 16th 2025 Winchester.
At the top spot on a hot day but at least I’m in the shade so my fat fingers don’t get fatter and make it even harder to play! It’s five minutes in before the first floor window is shut on the building opposite. I don’t blame them as they must have had their fill of me over the last week or so. The first donation is from a young girl who puts in a sugary sweet. It’s green and red – a strawberry, I think. It survives half an hour before I gobble it up. Don Lavelle’s at the end of The Pentice – it’s his first day of another painting. He says I’m the third busker here and the second one was really loud so maybe the occupants of the flat opposite have just had enough.
A big man who I think has had a “few”, starts talking loudly as he approaches me and I’m thinking “No, please don’t come up to me!” He stops around the side of the monument – I can see him out the corner of my left eye and he’s looking at me. After a few minutes he comes up during While My Guitar Gently Weeps and says ‘Neil Diamond.’ I don’t stop playing but say ‘Sorry, I don’t play any Neil Diamond.’ He gets a fiver out of his wallet and holds it in front of me. He could dangle a hundred quid in front of me and still I’m not playing any fucking Neil Diamond (I couldn’t even fake any). ‘No, sorry, I don’t know any, sorry!’ That did it. He slowly puts the fiver back and walks off. Haha!
A woman of around 80 donates, then has a chat with Don then comes back to me to ask if I would like to have a cup of tea in her flat down at the St Johns alms houses. I’m about to finish and head home so I politely thank her but decline the offer. Maybe next time, I say…especially if there are biscuits! I just had a funny thought. What if I went there and she said “I’ll just slip into something a bit more comfortable”, then disappeared and came back with a zimmer frame!