Exhausted and determined not to miss out
STEPhIE BATEMAN, 38, is a tax adviser and lives in Surrey with accountant husband Sam, 41, and daughters Evelyn, six, and Aubrey, four. She says: By The time August arrives, it will be two years since we had a proper family holiday. Last summer we spent three days in a caravan on the Sussex coast.
Sam and I are exhausted from working from home while also homeschooling for extended periods, and we’re sad we haven’t made any special memories for more than a year.
his parents live in Sotogrande in southern Spain in a beautiful house with a pool, so last year we’d booked flights to stay with them for two weeks, and had planned a third week in a luxury hotel.
When that was cancelled, we accepted vouchers from British Airways and luckily we hadn’t had to a pay a hotel deposit.
So, last month we used our vouchers to book flights to Spain for three-and-a-half weeks in the summer, and Sam booked the same hotel for the middle week, at a cost of around £3,000.
Still, with all the current uncertainty about foreign travel, I also booked a week at the start of August at Center Parcs in Suffolk for £2,200 and another week at the end of August.
They overlap with the dates for our Spain holiday so we can’t do both. Center Parcs allows free cancellations up to a few weeks before your stay, so we won’t lose out.
Do I feel guilty? It’s certainly not the way we’d normally do things, but we’re doing what’s right for our family in the circumstances.
Demand for UK breaks is so high we couldn’t risk leaving it until we know whether Spain will go ahead or not — either there’ll be nothing left or prices will be extortionate.