Busy Doing Nothing

I am writing this on a beautiful spring Sunday afternoon. Over the weekend I had the good fortune to have a full house here at Vert Le Mont B&B. The sun was shining and just about every guest was in Sutton to hike or enjoy a fine day of spring skiing. In the evening people strolled out to the restaurants and some took in the jazz at Café L’International. All in all everyone seemed to be having a good time including one couple from Montreal who, however, had done very little at all. They breakfasted late, read in the parlour, napped in the afternoon and went out only briefly.

Now, I always want to ensure that visitors to Sutton enjoy their stay, so I was concerned that maybe they didn’t realise how many things there were to do, let alone places to eat and so on. In consequence I made a particular point of asking if they had enjoyed their stay. “Most definitely”, they replied, it seemed that they had thoroughly enjoyed their time doing…nothing. They explained that they had both had a personally difficult winter and that what they really wanted, in coming to Sutton, was a break away from the obligations of their daily lives. The very last thing they wanted was to rush around during their brief stay. What they truly appreciated was the unhurried pace of life here at the B&B and in Sutton generally, for them it was priceless.

I felt this was a good lesson. For those of us in the Sutton tourist business, it is sometimes all too easy to feel that we have to compete with other destinations with more tangible and easily categorized ‘attractions’; to feel that we should be heaping our guests with ideas and suggestions of what to do, where to go, what to see and so on. We should recognize and be proud of the fact that just being ourselves is often attraction enough to prompt people to visit.

I have written before about one particular growing tendency in tourism: namely the rejection of overly planned vacations. Increasingly, many people’s daily lives are scheduled to the last minute and for them a break comes to represent the antithesis of that: namely the time to just sit, and think, and read… or not. Of course it’s nice if there is something agreeable to do if the mood takes one but it’s not a prere-quisite to having a rewarding break.

Taking things slowly is something that we do pretty well here in Sutton but we should remember that for many it’s a luxury.

Lynda Graham