Music, Magic and Human Kindness

So today was a bit of a busy day for me past 1pm. I mistakenly thought I had a seminar then, so instead decided to kill four hours of time by doing some errands in town. I went to find a book, and my expedition took me all the way through Newcastle, down streets I'm sure didn't exist before today, and into shops I didn't even know were there! I've worked out, roughly, that I've walked 5.6 miles today!

Anyway, back to today's picture. When I first walked past, there was just one guy sat playing the sax, and further on another guy playing the accordion, just out of earshot of each other. When I walked back, the trumpeteer had joined the sax guy and they were jamming quite happily on the side of the street, and their music was lovely! It's the sort of stuff you pay to hear. When I walked past the third and fourth times, the three had all teamed up and they were producing the most wonderful cacophony of music from instruments that aren't usually grouped together, it was the sound of urban France and American jazz halls mixed together, and it was wonderful to listen to. Their enthusiasm just made it perfect.

Later on, walking back to university for my only lecture of the day, I saw another guy playing the accordion on the high street, and an obviously severely disabled man in a wheelchair was handing him a £10 note. The guy stopped playing and looked very confused, put out his hands to refuse the money, but the man in the wheelchair, just calmly kept his hand out until the musician relented and took the note, then grabbed the other man's hand in a firm and friendly handshake, with one of the 'realest' smiles I have ever seen splitting his face. It was beautiful. I went around smiling for the rest of the day because of it.

Home and uni work to do tonight, it's good to be getting back into the swing of things, and hopefully I can keep up a more regular blog from now on.