There have been little notices on shop windows scattered around Nyon recently, announcing, “We are on holiday for three/four weeks – back in the middle of August”. When I first saw these signs many years ago, I was intrigued. How can anyone take all that time away from a business I wondered? It’s not the kind of thing I had seen before. In Britain, if you run a shop and want to go on holiday, you tend to leave someone else in charge. Or if you do go away, it’s probably for not much more than for a week.
I have now begun to accept, and now like the fact that some shops are completely closed for a good part of the summer season. In these days of 24/7 retail convenience, when we can order products in the middle of the night in our pyjamas (should we want), it’s refreshing...