Diary Of A Busker Day 266 Sunday, August 5th 2012 Stockbridge, Trout ‘n’ About, Stockbridge High Street, Time: 10:50am-12:35pm
A break from Winchester! I venture a few miles west to honour an engagement booked awhile ago. It’s Trout ‘n’ About, a local food/arts and crafts/music fair and one of the people in charge is Tania, who is also the person who contacted me. There’s no fee as such, but I can put my bucket out. When I was asking Tania about the details, like where exactly she wanted me to set up, she sent me an itinerary and my name was down as one of the acts featured in The Coop; some small stage they’d set up and given a country-ish name. So when Doll and I arrived there and parked on the high street, I went to find Tania which didn’t take long as she was milling around one of the market stalls right near the car. I asked where the place she wanted me to play was – this so-called Coop. She said, ‘Right here, if that’s alright.’ Right here was literally ten feet from where the car was, in front of the Co-op. It’s amazing what a difference a simple hyphen can make! Anyway, I set up a few feet from the pavement and facing the shops and Tania said I could use the power point on the outside wall of the Coop/Co-op, if I wanted. Why not, that’ll save my battery power. So a man turns up with an extension cable which he connects to my amp and the other end to the wall socket. But of course he has to tape it down so no one will trip on it. So he has to go away and get some tape…but he can’t find any strong gaffer tape so he brings back a reel of masking tape…which comes away from the pavement a minute after it’s taped down so the whole ordeal takes about twenty minutes, by which time I’m well into my set. The poor guy has to keep re-taping it down and put more and more layers on, and it was a hot day and he was sweating like mad. At one point I very nearly said ‘Look, it’s OK, I’ll just switch the batteries on – don’t bother with all that!’ but then all his hard work would have been in vain! He really did put a lot of effort in it but unfortunately it WAS mainly in vain, as everyone and especially all those with buggies, still kept tripping over the cable, or rather the tape which was supposed to be holding it down. Oh well, it gave me something to watch while I was playing. In fact I even took a photo at the end of my set. I’ll put it in my busker photo album.
As far as my set was concerned, I did get a bit worried when, after fifteen minutes, I still had no money collected in the bucket. I’m not sure it was obvious that I was a busker, and I think it has to be obvious sometimes! Maybe the bucket was too near me and too far away from the pavement, so I moved it. Tania wanted me to play for about an hour and a half but I managed a bit more than that but really had to stop when I did, because of something which is giving me some concern; a pain in the end joint of the first finger on my left hand which I seem to get after laying my finger flat across two or more strings, after playing for an hour or so. I only noticed it a couple of weeks ago. I think I probably need to rest it for a few days so I might have to take some time off after this.
After I’d finished up, I found Tania who gave me my £20 petrol expenses and a food and drinks ticket so I had a very nice hamburger from the bar they’d set up next to some folk group playing Irish fiddle-de-de stuff, very similar to Guy’s Threepenny Bit lot.
Earnings: £19.20 + 1 CD