Catch 22

My soprano sax on holiday in West Wales

"I’m sooo cold," Snowdon tells Yossarin in Catch 22.

Know how he feels. I’m standing in Church Street, Ludlow last Sunday, belting my way through the first set (Blue Moon, Shadow of Your Smile and that odd one I made up, posted on Sunday 10 July).

Foolishly I’ve dressed for the Indian summer that never quite reaches this Victorian passage, shielded from the sun by three storey buildings and given extra ventilation by a curious architectural monument, some kind of a drain, beneath which I play. It’s a three way breeze.  

But it’s good to be out and playing again, even if my fingers are numbing up and my embouchure is frozen in rictus with the cold. I must rethink this if I’m going to play through the winter.  

I’m about to give up when an older lady in blue, comes up very close.

“Are you professional?”

I’m still thinking of the reply when she says . . . bless . . .

“Because you’re very good. Now where do I put this?”

She hovers a pound coin before me.