Day 2633
Friday December 19th 2025
Winchester
The Two Henrys are at the top spot, another due – two young blokes, are in The Square, there’s a stall at the crossroads spot so it’s in front of Nando’s for me.
School’s out early for the holidays so there are millions of them about, most of them trying to get into Nando’s!
Just before I’m about to start up, an artist turns up to set up his makeshift painting display. He’s from Lymington and friendly enough, asking me if it’s alright to set up a few feet in front of me. Apparently, some don’t like it as it obscures them from the view of people coming down the street in front of Sainsbury’s. I tell him it doesn’t bother me as there’s a path in front of me where everyone’s walking.
He says some of the traders get a bit funny with him because he doesn’t pay for a pitch – ‘Some people don’t like it and ask me to move on every fifteen minutes and if I don’t they say I’m on CCTV and they’ll get the police on to me.’ I say that’s terrible. ‘I know. I mean, I’m not doing any harm.’ He also likes someone playing music nearby as he says it helps trade – ‘People stop to look at you and then they might have a look at my paintings, you know?’
We’ll, people may stop to look at me but they’re not donating! Apart from a man who bought a CD early on, which was a godsend because the total for 1 1/2 hours was a mere £14.10, and that’s including the CD sale!
Andrew, aka “Cheerio” turned up and we talked about our hospital experiences. He had a stay of a week and got to really like the staff – ‘There was one young lady called Gifty and I thought, is that a real name? so I Googled it.’ I said the foreign staff often have unusual (for us) names, like Precious and Good Luck.
‘Oh do they? Well, I looked it up and there were two meanings. One was Gifty is a name they pick because they grow up to be good-looking but then I thought well, how will the mother know if they’re going to be good-looking?’
‘Well, I think every mother thinks they’re daughter is going to be good-looking, don’t they?’
‘Hm…and the other meaning was Gifty – a gift from God. And I thought that was a much better meaning.’
‘Right…yeah, OK, that’s quite nice, I suppose.’
I wanted to go for two hours but the hands had had enough, and so had my feet, despite it being around 10 degrees and no wind…and the money wasn’t worth it.