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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to go to Australia for the weekend?!

920 replies

HufflepuffHarpy · 07/07/2019 07:16

My best friend (male if relevant) is getting married in the autumn. I'm in the UK (where we both grew up) he now lives in Australia.

I desperately want to go to the wedding.

It will cost £1000 for the flight plus accomodation etc over there which is in no way small money.

I have 4DC so would be asking my parents (very hands on babysitters, have had them for me and DH to go on holiday etc) to have the DC (all under 10) while DH is at work.

I would leave on a thursday AM flight and get back tuesday pm. SO literally fly in for the wedding, the day after and then back home.

Am I being totally crazy to consider this?! (Haven't actually asked DH yet!!)

OP posts:
Lilsquish · 09/07/2019 04:32

Go for it OP.

Its totally do-able and if OH and parents onboard etc, fantastic.

I went to Oz for 8 days (surprise bday present for my OH - i couldn't get more time off work)

Travel was this:
7 hour drive to london
10 hour flight to Beijing
13 hour stop over in Beijing
11 hour flight to Oz

lol. this was on Air China (i really dont recommended!! - was on a tight budget)

When we got to Oz it was lunch time and we went straight out for drinks with his family. This lasted til the small hours and we were hammered.

Both of us had zero jet lag. Were too excited to be there.

Have a wonderful time OP.

Come back and update us with how it goes.

Seahorseshoe · 09/07/2019 05:15

I kind of think this is the sort of thing you look back on, on a life well lived. I don't think anyone, on their deathbed, think "I'm so glad I bought that sofa in 1982". It's what you do with your life that's important, not what stuff you've got. I'd go for it and make a happy memory.

Rache49 · 09/07/2019 05:16

Not unreasonable just unrealistic!! You would get more value from your money to spend longer and go and see Australia as well as attend the wedding. Thats what most folk do.

SushiForAmateurs · 09/07/2019 05:51

It's perfectly realistic @Rache49, given that plenty of people have done it, and the OP is doing it!

HicDraconis · 09/07/2019 05:56

Glad you’re going - hope you have an awesome time.

Seeing this thread in active convos has reminded me I need to book my NZ - UK return flights for a week in December :)

Gre8scott · 09/07/2019 06:11

Go i thi k its wonderful you want to. Also go for longer the people watching the kida qill cope x

Bruce2605 · 09/07/2019 07:01

Go for it. You will make your best friends day! If you discuss with you partner/ parents you might find they suggest staying a few more days (you can only hope). If however it's a firm no why not ask if they could set up a Skype call or teleconference type thing. Am sure if hes from England there will be others unable to attend, when my friend married in Vegas they did a live stream ?

MarshaBradyo · 09/07/2019 07:09

It’s not just business, although they may think from a general life is short go for it attitude tg no one gives a shit we can carry on as we are.

I’m surprised at the sofa comment. On the deathbed we may well regret handing over a shittier planet to the next generations, including our own if we have them.

This thread it so at odds with what is going on.

MarshaBradyo · 09/07/2019 07:14

And Skype? No there are investments that can be made to put people virtually in the same room, just divert some of that hefty travel budget.

MarshaBradyo · 09/07/2019 07:14

For businesses obvs

Catwaving · 09/07/2019 07:15

Just remembered Extinction Rebellion are planning to shut down Heathrow in the autumn for a couple of weeks

If I was planning to fly I wouldn't book it until they announced the dates

Just sayin'

MarshaBradyo · 09/07/2019 07:24

Good person on R4 right now, carbon charge

Cutesbabasmummy · 09/07/2019 07:28

My DH went to a wedding in California and he did a 4 day round trip. He spent the while time feeling jetlagged and ironically the couple divorced after a year!

IfOnlyOurEyesSawSouls · 09/07/2019 07:39

@Tavannach who on earth are you to say what the OP is enriched by ??!!

Enrichment comes from many different things other than family you know !!!!

Figmentofmyimagination · 09/07/2019 07:40

I once flew from Hong Kong to London and back for the weekend to surprise my fiancée on his birthday. We were young and I had the money. The time change worked in my favour, giving me an extra few hours - coming back, I changed in the airport loos in HK and went straight into work on Monday morning as I had no spare holiday - but by the end of the week I remember being very poorly, as it was all too much really. Great memories though!

Notcopingwellhere · 09/07/2019 07:50

The planet can't, and doesn't, distinguish between types of flights. They all, each and every single one, cause damage.

70%of flights are holidays, not business travel

You’re looking at this the wrong way. The aviation industry operates flights because it makes a profit from doing so and the customers who keep them flying are the business customers because the cost of business class travel is vastly more than holiday travel. That’s where the profit comes from. So even if 70% of flights are for holidays, the income derived from business is likely to be vastly more than 30% of the airline’s income.

I also suspect that wherever that 70% statistic came from, “holidays” also includes essential family trips- EasyJet only gave me a choice of “business” or “leisure” as my reason for travel when I was booking to go and visit a seriously ill relative.

The climate emergency is real and terrifying. But you posters on here who are getting more and more shrill and aggressive and frothing about one woman taking one return flight are going completely the wrong way about it if you want to change people’s behaviours for the good of humanity. Nobody responds well to being berated and accused of not caring about their children.

MarshaBradyo · 09/07/2019 07:53

There’s no shrillness

MarshaBradyo · 09/07/2019 07:54

Ridiculous all this aggressive and frothing

None of that either

Lots of hands in the air squee so excited for you though

Notcopingwellhere · 09/07/2019 07:54

The OP isn't going too be enriched or nurtured by flying halfway around the world for an old friend's wedding. She's chasing rainbows. Enrichment and nurture will be closer to home.

@Tavannach how can you possibly say with a straight face that you know best about what would enrich the life of someone you have never met? What a breathtakingly self-centred statement.

zingally · 09/07/2019 07:58

I'd go.

Yes, it's totally crazy, but do it anyway.

Ask yourself one question, "will I always regret it if I don't go?" If your answer is yes, then do. If your answer is, "... eh... umm... probably not." Go anyway. Only if you're answer is a definite "no", do you stay at home.

SushiForAmateurs · 09/07/2019 08:29

There’s no shrillness

It's the increasing shrillness that keeps me refreshing the thread.

usernamealreadytaken · 09/07/2019 08:35

Haven't RTFT, but surprised extinction rebellion haven't infiltrated yet and pointed out how damaging flights are to the planet. Hope you plant some more trees on you return.

Feelingquitewarm · 09/07/2019 08:45

The debate about economy vs business is irrelevant. Economy seats keep planes up in the air as they are so numerous that they subsidise the price of business seats. Making business travel possible. They contribute just as much to carbon emissions, and there is no point in trying to justify your decisions by convincing yourself otherwise.
The only argument that matters here in this thread, is the environmental one. This is a selfish decision and in a few decades time, people will look back at the decisions they have made with much regret. Regret that they put their immediate wants, sold to them by global corporations, before the needs of this planet and therefore before their own future. The catastrophe that awaits us and our children will be completely devastating. People will starve. There will be droughts. Wildfires. Uncontrollable heat waves. Floods. Mass movement of people as we all battle for resources.
We all need to start changing the way we live and unnecessary air travel is a massive part of that. To continue to bury our heads in the sand is unforgivable. We all need to do as much as we can now. We can only control and change our own decisions. There is no time left to ignore the science.

BIWI · 09/07/2019 08:49

@usernamealreadytaken

Haven't RTFT, but surprised extinction rebellion haven't infiltrated yet and pointed out how damaging flights are to the planet.

This is a classic example of why you should RTFT!

How arrogant of you to assume that no-one else has already thought of this, on a thread with almost 700 posts on it!

FFS.

BIWI · 09/07/2019 08:51

@everythingthelighttouches

My DC were older then, but what difference would that have made?

My DH was more than capable of looking after them - and if he needed help, we had a nanny who was there during the week.

Do you think that in some way I shouldn't have been allowed to go if my DC were younger?