Day 2723
Tuesday July 28th 2026
Southampton
Back to the big city and I’m lucky because there’s no one playing anywhere so I can set up in the shade of the massive canopy covering the entrance to the mall. This is very good because it’s another hot day and there’s no way I’m setting up in the sun – this is the only shaded area. Result!
As it’s the big city there’s always a few nutters about. A man standing a healthy distance away emits sudden loud shouts – barks might be a more accurate description – I’m taking this as his way of signalling approval of my selections but who really knows?! he comes and goes in half an hour. Then there’s the pissed woman with a plastic glass of wine, who dances round my area, chatting up the young boys sitting behind me on the circular concrete bit. She never stops talking and says ‘I’m making you a fortune, aren’t I?’ ‘Yeah, you are’ I say. I mean, it’s best just to agree with her.
Because of the shade I’m able to do 2 1/2 hours without much problem. The piece de resistance/memorable encounter of the day occurs around 3 o’clock when a young woman comes from the mall and films me doing the Romance de Espana – which is unfortunate because I make a right hash of it. At the end she comes up –
‘That’s Romance, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, Romance de Espana. Thank you for recognising it!’
‘I just came out of here (mall) and heard that and that was played at my father’s funeral.’
‘That’s weird because I played that in Winchester a few weeks ago and a woman came up and said the same thing. She was sitting with her daughters outside the Orangery. She said it was played at her husband’s funeral! That wasn’t YOUR mother was it? Were you there?’
‘No, it couldn’t have been. I’m an only child. It was 2006 when my father died.’
‘But that’s when this other lady’s husband died – his funeral was twenty years to the day of when I played it, and that was the first time I actually played it.’
‘What? Well, what are the chances of that?’
‘So wait a minute. That means that your father and this other woman’s husband both died twenty years ago and had that played at their funeral and I just happened to be playing it when you and this other lady were there!’
Absolutely amazing. I mean, what are the chances of that? In fact, this woman is so intrigued she wants to read the diary entry about the first woman. I wonder if she will…
Coinage is a very respectable £45.19 after the £4.35 train fare. That reminds me. When I got off the train at Southampton, I got on to the platform and then bounced the trolley down the two steps of the train then the bigger one on to the platform and one of the tyres came off the rim so I had to sit on a bench, turn the trolley on its side and prise the tyre back on, not entirely successfully so it was a bit bumpy on the walk to the mall. I’m going to have to actually lift the bloody heavy trolley off the train from now on.