DH & MIL are Scottish, we live in London and alternate Christmases every year between up there and my family who are just outside London. We’ve not been to Scotland for Christmas since 2019 due to covid and so have a huge Christmas planned this year with all the Scottish family which we’re all really looking forward to.
Way before the strikes were announced we booked an Air BnB on the same road as the family member who is hosting Christmas (no room at the inn there), and always planned to drive up from London on 23rd Dec with MIL and DC6 because flying or getting the train with presents etc would be too much faff.
Now that the strikes have been confirmed, I read yesterday that the Highways Agency is saying people shouldn’t travel on 23rd/24th if they can avoid it, expecting 17m cars on the roads and significant traffic. We’re fine with driving long distances, DC looking forward to having sweets and audiobooks, MIL will
probably sleep. I don’t know what the solution is as we can’t really afford to stay anywhere overnight to break up the journey nor to extend the Air BnB booking… we’re already stretching financially to do this in the first place. We don’t have access to the Air BnB until 3pm so an overnight drive wouldn’t work either.
If we leave London at 6am that might help I guess… and we’re planning to take the route that goes up the west to avoid the M1. Are we mad to even consider it?