Flanders for a week’s cycling on the cobbles and a day off to wander the streets of Ghent. The streets crowded with shoppers and day trippers, frites with mayonnaise, canals, another candidate for Venice of the North, like Bruges but less famous.

And always the buskers, the hawkers, the street sellers, the living statues mingling with the pick-pockets and phone snatchers. 

I saw this street musician setting up, guitar at the ready, a last energy giving banana clutched like a pick in his hand. I quickly raised my Leica D Lux 8 and sneaked a frame. He saw me and we smiled, me weakly, he open and friendly.

‘Do you mind?’ I asked. ‘Not at all,’ he said.

I raised my camera to take another. He made to put the banana down. ‘No,’ I said, ‘keep it.’

He held it, self consciously. ‘Don’t pose,’ I said. ‘Look at your mate and when I say “now” – look back.

I took the picture and he gave me his Instagram handle to send it to him. 

I did.