Here’s our own road map to freedom
LIKE most of the population, my wife and I are very much looking forward to a holiday this year. The endless succession of lockdowns, the grim headlines and the sheer amount of work we both took on to speed up our incarceration have taken their toll and we need a break.
As Boris was reading out his “roadmap”, we were busy planning an April getaway. The earliest we can go away, according to the proposed path out of lockdown, will be April 12. So as close as we can to that glorious date, we plan to be away in our motorhome exploring the British countryside.
But we’re counting down to this date with a sense of trepidation. Because we won’t be the only ones venturing out for our first taste of freedom in many months.
April will be the first warmer month we’ve been allowed to stray away from home since September. And, when we were last released into a nation of blue skies and longer evenings back in July, we had to accept we were very much joining the masses.
Whatever happens to international travel rules, it’s clear 2021 will be a year dominated by “staycations”. People will be heading out in their hordes to enjoy the best of Britain. And we’ve got to be very careful we don’t get unwittingly swallowed up in the crowds.
Back in the summer, I went out regularly to report on the huge influxes of tourists that were overwhelming my local beauty spots. It was an ugly sight to behold, and I’m dreading a repeat of it this year.
So, when my wife and I finally head out in our van, we’re going to play it safe. We have a plan.
We’re going to head south. The in-laws live in The Chilterns, which is a lovely part of the world, and they have a large driveway we can “camp” on for a few nights.
Getting down to rural
Hertfordshire will involve a lengthy stint on the M1. But we’re planning to set off at what we’re referring to as “anti-social o’clock”. The last thing we want is to encounter huge volumes of traffic at peak travelling times and to get stuck in a jam.
After we leave Hertfordshire, we’re planning to hop from driveway to driveway. Campsites are already booked up, and it’s becoming obvious the usual tucked-away hiding places we usually like to park up in will be swamped throughout the spring and summer. The world and his wife have been buying and borrowing motorhomes just recently, and they’ll all be out in April.
So we’ll stay off the motorways entirely, call in on friends with decent gardens who can accommodate us within the rule of six, and just tour around a bit, avoiding everyone else.
We’ve got friends in Oxfordshire, The Cotswolds, the nicer parts of the Birmingham outskirts, and rural Leicestershire, so we should be able to complete our round-trip without having to book into any campsites.
It’s certainly going to be a different holiday. But to be able to see friends, share stories of our time in lockdown, and just to have a change of scenery is going to be such a tonic.
But just watch, it’d be typical for the weather to be hideous all week and we’ll inevitably spend each visit sheltering under our awning, shouting pleasantries at our friends through their front-room windows.
But I don’t care. I’m just looking forward to a taste of freedom. It’s been a long time.