Day 2636

Day 2636
Wednesday December 24th 2025
Winchester

Coming into the high street I can hear Kev groaning (whilst slouching in his chair, I’m assuming) down to the left and to the right, a massive crowd listening to something in front of the tree. I can just about make my way through them and get to The Square to start up at 11:30.
The day before Christmas and, at 5 degrees, it’s bloody freezing. Not only that, but it’s really windy. I must be bonkers…I reckon I’ll last no more than twenty minutes.

To start off with, there weren’t a lot of people about as the Christmas Market closed on the 22nd but half an hour in and it got a bit busier – so I’ve lasted a bit more than twenty minutes. The coinage, or rather noteage, is admirable – I’ve got a couple of fivers and even a tenner, all of which I have to weigh down with pound coins so they don’t blow away. I have a welcome break to warm the hands in my pockets at the forty minute mark when an older man out with his family stopped –
‘Do you do requests?’
‘Yeah, sure, if I know the song.’
‘Nothing Really Matters.’
‘Ah…sorry, no. I get asked for that one a lot, actually, but sorry, no.’
‘Hm…any Cream?’
‘Sorry again, well apart from (I do the Sunshine Of Your Love riff)…and I do the piano bit from Layla (I play a few seconds of that).’
He changes the subject slightly – ‘Do you ever get frustrated? I mean, all this playing and people just walking by, not really paying attention.’
‘Yeah, sometimes. The worse thing is when someone stands a foot away and films me for a couple of minutes then walks off without giving anything. That does my head in sometimes.’
‘Yes, that’s rude, isn’t it?’
‘Yep. Are you from out of town?’
‘Yes, no, well I live in Scotland but I grew up here, went to school here, but lived abroad for years and now live in Scotland. I mean, Winchester’s so expensive.’
‘I know. I live in a cheap rent area in Greenhill Road. It used to be the Winchester Working Men’s Housing Society but now it’s just the Winchester Housing Society. They’ve dropped the “working men’s” bit. But the terraced houses across the road are a fortune.’
‘Yes, well, I could buy three houses in Scotland for the price of one here.’

As I was saying, this short break was a real help because my thumbpick thumb was in serious pain – the circulation isn’t very good at the best of times because of the tightness of the pick but with the added freezing temperature, it was extremely painful and I would have had to stop pretty soon, anyway.
As it was, I was able to resume playing and carry on until 12:45, so I’d managed to do an hour and a quarter, which was amazing! I hadn’t played in those temperatures (and with that wind) in years and I was quite chuffed I could still do it. Still life in the old dog yet! Even so, it took more than five hours after I got back home for the fingertips to stop tingling, they were that cold.

I was well chuffed with the dosh – a very respectable £54.03, probably with a fair amount of sympathy money, I shouldn’t wonder.
I also got a bit of applause (from out of towners, obviously) during one of the Jingle Bell Rock renditions. Result.