When their tourists leave

When the season draws to a close, do the shops open a little later, close a little earlier? Hell no. The owners cleave as much business from the dwindling populous as possible. Standing between their eateries on the seafront like guards on their towers. Spotting the innocent pilgrim too enamoured in the heat of the winter from three hundred yards, too preoccupied with the extra sunshine in their lives to notice they’ve been targeted for approach. A good sniper would be proud. Still, you can’t blame them, they know what’s coming and in the words of one too clever for their own boots… it’s getting fucking cold.

The smells are a different matter. Gone is the lingering aroma of ‘piz buin’ (or whatever the ALDI alternative is) and the stank of ‘axe’ and ‘brut’. In comes the industrial chemical disinfectant to wash the smell of he tourist sickness from the pavements. The blocked drains from all the brits flushing anything down the shitter in the last few months have eventually given up the ghost and decided to spill the sewage at the end of the drainage system (usually around the places I live). The once pleasant smell of the sea has been kicked to the curb for a couple of days until the natural scent of the island can recover. 

It does, however, seem a little more sociable in the PM what with the local restaurants actually having seats available with no wannabe pop idol contestant warbling the latest tune ripped off their recording devices to be proclaimed their own. Those singers whose winters are now forwarded to the cruise ships ensconced in the sunnier southern half of this once great planet called Terra have  left. All in all, it’s an island of two halves. The lingering trails of exhaust fumes from the outlanders fucking back off home and the lingering unwashed murkiness of the locals returning to their daily lives. Which am I? I’ll be the forgotten Twinkie at the back of the cupboard… the one that can never go off. I’ll be round for the next big shop.