Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

11
There are places where the changing seasons are marked by migrating birds, or
the ebb and flow of tides. Here, in our little town, it was the return of the
tourists. At first, a tentative trickle, stepping off trains or out of cars in brightly
coloured waterproof coats, clutching their guidebooks and National Trust
membership; then, as the air warmed, and the season crept forwards, disgorged
alongside the belch and hiss of their coaches, clogging up the high street,
Americans, Japanese and packs of foreign schoolchildren were dotted around the
perimeter of the castle.
In the winter months little stayed open. The wealthier shop owners took
advantage of the long bleak months to disappear to holiday homes abroad, while
the more determined hosted Christmas events, capitalizing on occasional carol
concerts in the grounds, or festive craft fairs. But then as the temperatures slid
higher, the castle car parks would become studded with vehicles, the local pubs
chalk up an increase in requests for a ploughman’s lunch and, within a few
sunny Sundays, we had morphed again from being a sleepy market town into a
traditional English tourist destination.
I walked up the hill, dodging this season’s hovering early few as they clutched
their neoprene bumbags and well-thumbed tourist guides, their cameras already
poised to capture mementoes of the castle in spring. I smiled at a few, paused to
take photographs of others with proffered cameras. Some locals complained
about the tourist season – the traffic jams, the overwhelmed public toilets, the
demands for strange comestibles in The Buttered Bun cafe (‘You don’t do sushi?
Not even hand roll?’). But I didn’t. I liked the breath of foreign air, the close-up
glimpses of lives far removed from my own. I liked to hear the accents and work
out where their owners came from, to study the clothes of people who had never
seen a Next catalogue or bought a five-pack of knickers at Marks and Spencer’s.