On a grey morning in Asos wondering about the tourist trade

We awoke to heavy leaden skies and by 10 am there seemed no promise of a better day.

By the beach the sun beds were all still stacked and only a few hardy souls had ventured out to watch the wave’s crash across the shore.

Back in the village square, the umbrellas in the restaurants were all down and no one was taking breakfast.

The few brief moments when the clouds vanished to reveal a blue sky were short lived.

And for the first time I pondered on how the holiday business in Asos on Cephalonia was bearing up.

By common consent there seemed to be fewer tourists on the island.

But memory is not always a good guide to these things and the owner of the restaurant in the village square assured us that “lots of people were coming here instead of staying in their own country.”

And I believe him, after all he recognised us as the family who made him pasta with garlic and olive oil.

It is a story long in the telling but suffice to say that Rosa who is from Naples took pity on him when he complained his mother could never quite make it right.

And judging by the full tables around us business is good which of course it has to be because a lot of Greeks invest much in the tourist months.

You see it all round you, from the local farmers bringing in fresh produce everyday for the restaurants to the women who clean the holiday homes and those who travel from the mainland just for the season working the long hours through the day and late into the night.

But when you actually weigh it up there are in fact very few enterprises here on Assos.  Apart from the two mini markets there are just four restaurants, an overpriced cocktail bar two beech bars and two tourist shops.

And there is a concentration of control for the two mini markets are owned by one family, one of the bars and a restaurant by two brothers while the Wi-Fi cafe and harbour restaurant by another couple.

Now it is not always easy to determine whether they are the owners or merely working the business for someone else.

Either way there is no questioning how hard they work.  The mini markets are open by 9 in the morning and will not close till 10 pm, while all the bars and restaurants will be serving all day and late into the evening.

Nor are we talking about shift work for it’s the same staff who will be serving breakfast at 10 and finishing off the night with the last of the diners.

Of course this is not something that tends to cross your mind.  Most of us get friendly with a waiter, joke about the weather ask superficial questions about their lives and if pushed brush away their long hours of labour with the thought that when the season closes these waiters, shop keepers and cleaners can relax.

But I wonder, particularly in the light of the current state of the Greek economy.

Which is almost where I began because the concerns over the state of the tourist business on the island had been prompted by the grey sky and unpromising morning.

We took coffee at the beech bar watching the sea and waiting for the sun to burn the clouds away and sure enough by mid day the water had settled, the sky was blue and the relentless sunshine was back.

And along with the sun were the coach parties.  They arrive regularly in the morning in their air conditioned buses; spend upwards of an hour and half taking pictures and sampling the bars.

It is easy to become sniffy about this intrusion into the peace of the resort.

There are a lot of them, they clog the road past the house and make a lot of noise, but they also spend money, and that for traders and residents is an important consideration.  Moreover the grey clouds had not put them off.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson. 2013