Day 2756
Saturday October 31st 2026
Winchester
And the mild weather continues…Don is again on a break from his latest. I see by the lines he puts at the bottom left of his paintings that he’s on day 21. He says he starts a painting off slow then gets very energetic then slows down near the end. I ask if he’s seen Pasha about today. Yesterday, as I was leaving, Pasha was telling me about his Cube Street amp which has developed a fault and there’s only one channel now working, so when he’s sitting down he has to position the mic at chest level, bend over and sing and also get his acoustic picked up. I suddenly remembered my own Cube Street, which I’m trying to sell on ebay and said he could have it for £100. He said he could pay me in a few weeks and I said that was fine. But then, afterwards, I thought well, I should just give him the amp and he can pay me whenever. He seems like a nice bloke and I’m sure he would come through with it. Anyway, Don hasn’t seen him today. He asks where I’m going to set up and I say I’ll have a look round the corner in The Square, which I do but it looks a bit dead so I come back and set up outside the Nat West where I do an hour (made about £15) before getting bored and deciding to pack up and heading to The Square.
There were plenty of people in the High Street but not many here. Like I said, it’s mild but it’s getting colder and who wants to sit outside, even in mildness?! The proceedings reached fever pitch when a bunch of student-age girls asked if one of them could pose with my guitar while the others took photos of her (of course). ‘How long?’ I asked. ‘Oh…ten seconds?’ ‘Alright then’ I said as I handed my lovely guitar over…and they got a real thrill so all was well with the world.
After an hour there, my hands were feeling the chill and I packed up, so that’s two hours today and another £15 or so…and I was in luck, or rather Pasha was. He was playing where I was earlier and surprise, surprise, those girls were in front of him! After one of them posed with his guitar (and all the others photo’d her, of course), I presented my proposition to Pasha – he could have the amp and pay me later. Agreed, and as he wanted it as soon as possible, he walked home with me, I brought the amp downstairs and carried it across the arbor, at which point, I couldn’t carry it any more and Pasha knew his way back. Well, he had his phone so he wouldn’t have got lost but I thought I should accompany him for a bit of the way or he’d be carrying two amps and his heavy gigbag.
Apparently, he’d been able to get out of Ukraine due to his father-in-law, who’s blind and needed someone to accompany him to a short trip to Poland and Pasha was the one he requested. Once across the Polish border, Pasha was free.