Judith WOODS
Summertime and the living is easy. The leaving is much more difficult however, what with the 700,000 people-aweek pingdemic and the Wacky Races traffic lights changing quicker than you can say Dick Dastardly. So I am drawing a line in the sand. Frankly, I’m bored of everyone wittering on endlessly about whether they will or won’t, could or should, risk a fortnight in the Balearics.
I will no longer feign sympathy at your tedious Costa dilemmas or express doleful sighs of solidarity about your vacant villa on Sardinia because unless you haven’t seen your expat grandchildren since 2019 (which is genuinely sad), I don’t want to know.
Go. Or don’t go. Just stop getting aerated about the cost of tests and the risks of quarantine and asking me what I think about it. I don’t give a monkey’s.
The expression “put up or shut up” springs to mind, which incidentally was originally used by Sir John Major in reference to Eurosceptics. History has already been the judge of that particular put-down but oh, how I miss the grey man of politics.
Indeed nostalgia is what’s fuelling much of our anguish about going abroad; because it’s what we do, and have always done. Despite the shuttered bars in Portugal, the music ban on Mykonos and the compulsory masks across Malta, a great many British people are clinging to the belief we can still kick back and have a carefree time.
That’s as may be, but rules can change in line with Covid infection rates. Take the current international argy-bargy with France over “amber plus”. This has been conferred on our European neighbour because of Beta variant rates on Reunion, the French island in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar, 6,000 miles away from the Élysée Palace.
I’m no politician, but France’s Europe Minister Clement Beaune’s description of it as “discriminatory and excessive” sounds about right to me.
Across the pond, the US president is Bidin’ his time over dropping quarantine for double-jabbed British visitors – even though we’re letting his lot in. Rude. And even I feel a tug at my heartstrings over the mother stranded in Majorca with two 13-year-old girls, who have just spent 10 days in quarantine after she tested positive for Covid.
A day before departure, April Allinson’s test was positive, so she couldn’t come back to the UK. Instead she spent 10 days in her room, along with 13-year-old daughter Ellie and her friend Lilly.
They were due to return to the UK tomorrow, but the Spanish Embassy told the teenagers to quarantine for another 10 days; and that the girls would have to start this period of isolation as soon as Allinson has left.
Not unreasonably, she is very unhappy and “doesn’t understand how it can be acceptable or legal” to leave two teenage girls in a foreign country alone for 10 days.
Unfortunately, in the new normal of international travel, “acceptable” is very much in the eye of the beholder. Hence the mass staycations in booked-up Britain. I say booked-up but rest assured, there are still spaces available if you’re prepared to swap fancy hotels and fine dining for al fresco freedom.
Admittedly, as we brace ourselves for Storm Evert, it feels rather more end of days than time to crack open the Ambre Solaire – but catastrophising is counterproductive, I am stubbornly determined to make the best of things.
After waiting with bated breath for my elder daughter’s return, she brought Covid back from Greece. I’ve no idea how she got through her fit-to-fly test but somehow she did, boarded the plane (apologies, everyone) and tested positive on Day Two. She was miserable and tired rather than feverish (sorry darling, for originally dismissing it as a retsina hangover) and took to her bed while the rest of us grumbled about having to isolate instead of intrepidly embarking on a much-anticipated camping trip with another family in the New Forest.
Eventually Test and Trace released us and, although we had missed three days out of five, I took the executive decision to leave the recovering patient where she lay, load the car and rebrand the three-hour drive in the lashing rain as “all part of the adventure”.
And it was worth it, even for 48 hours. We got to hang out with our mates – who were so delighted we turned up at all they welcomed us like it was the Relief of Mafeking – communed with free-range ponies and idled away the downpours drinking tea and, later, wine, before toasting marshmallows under our lovely new tarp. And peculiarly blissful it was, too.
So much so that I’ve booked another, nearby, campsite for two weeks’ time. Would I rather be flying abroad to guaranteed sun? Given the uncertainty, hand on heart, no, I wouldn’t.
After the unique privations of these past 16 months, it has dawned on me that I crave convivial company rather than high-luxe lounging.
Our getaway wasn’t remotely glamorous but it served as a reminder that once you’ve managed your expectations, no-frills fun can be as perfect as any other sort.
Catastrophising is counterproductive, and I am determined to make the best of it