Day 2649

Day 2649
Thursday January 29th 2026
Winchester

There’s bloke singing at the top spot and that girl from yesterday outside M&S. Too windy in The Square so it’s one of my old haunts, the spot opposite The Body Shop in The Pentice.
Coinage is slow, in fact non-existent for more than half an hour. I was starting to think I was invisible…when Posh Sarah comes up –
‘You OK, Marvin?’
‘Yeah, fine so far.’
‘We’ve got a new place, up at The Arc.’
‘The Arc?’
‘Yes, you know, the library. It’s nicer than where we were.’
‘Oh, in Nero’s…for your Wednesday meetings.’
‘Yes, come up sometime.’
‘OK, 3 o’clock Wednesdays, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, come up if you need us.’
‘Right, OK…I’ll come up if I need you!’ says I, cheekily. She brushes me off with a twirl of her arm, laughs and walks away.

Not one bit of coinage but wait, what’s this? A young woman coming up with a tenner in her hand. It’s a CD sale and that’s a profit of £9! Result! I’ve just done better than the last two days. I don’t care what happens now!

That tiny old French lady who doesn’t come up to me anymore – this is the woman who always gave me a fiver – pauses with her trolley across the road. She’s looking for something then goes off and into Tesco a bit further down. Ten minutes later, she’s back out and comes up to me –
‘Hello, will you have this? This for you’ she says, producing a Sausage Bacon and Egg triple sandwich.
‘Ah…you don’t have to buy me this – I have food, I’m not…I’ve got food. I don’t want for food. You have it, you have it.’
‘Oh…no, I’ve got loads of these things in my house.’
‘Honestly, it’s alright, you have it.’
She gets a bit distressed – ‘No, no, I’ll have to give it to someone else then, if you won’t have it.’
‘Did you buy it for ME?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Thank you very much, I’ll have it.’ Because I didn’t know what else to say – she’d be looking round in the cold for someone else to give it to and it seemed rude not to take it as she’d actually bought it for me and really was getting distressed when I said I didn’t want it.

I managed the usual hour and ten minutes and in that whole time there was only ONE donation (of £1.21) apart from the CD woman. Still, it’s not quantity, it’s quality!