I hate our holiday and want to go home

[Backwoods57]

I need to rant.

Day 10 of a 13 day visit to the UK. We moved to the USA in 2014 and have to come back every year because MIL can't afford to visit us, and is scared of flying. We are in Aldershot/Farnham area. There is nothing to do apart from walk up and down dead high streets. Traffic is terrible, I smell the pollution and cigarette smoke everywhere.

If we don't come we get a massive guilt trip about MIL not seeing grandkids etc.

This trip cost $4000, we have done very little apart from visit family and sit in my SiL's cramped dirty messy house.

2 weeks of my 3 week vacation allowance has been thrown away. I have start working remotely for A. Something to do, and B so I can claim some vacation days back.

I miss my home, our dogs, I miss countryside and wildlife, I want my space back.....and tap water that doesn't taste like bleach.

Well exactly. And I don’t remember the last time I smelt cigarette smoke here!

Can’t imagine loving living somewhere where you wonder if your child is going to get shot when you wave them off to school every day. Clearly desensitised by it all..

Frensham Ponds, Virginia Water, Windsor Great Park, Devil’s Punch Bowl all stunning and 40 min drive if that. Used to be Birdworld depending on age of kids, the canal out Frimley Green way.
Hope you can get out a bit

Yarbu, duty Holidays are not always fun. As your main cost is flights, instead of spending two weeks at family, do one week with family and one week just yourselves somewhere else. Have a week somewhere else in the UK, or head over to mainland Europe. And yiur husband should be more than capable of traveling on his own with his kids. Two weeks is too long.

Can someone explain why there is apparently no cigarette smoke in the streets in the US? People smoke there too, and there are laws banning smoking inside. What’s the difference?

There are laws banning smoking close to buildings too.

Universal ones? Or just rules for specific buildings? (Which we have too).
These things are usually state-specific aren’t they?

Yes but the distance between Farnham and Aldershot is only 3 miles even if they are in different counties....

I don't know the specifics and I'm not invested enough to google 😁I feel for the OP in part because I recognise so much of the scenario having lived away from home for such a long time. She'll hopefully have learnt a few lessons from the experience as we all have had to do over the years. Returning home is rarely all it's cracked up to be - after all you left for a reason.

Well she said she was 'trapped in Aldershot/Farnham'. At worst a massive 5min train journey costing c£6 for the family...:)

By now, she likely has. OP has long since gone from this thread.

Not that I blame her.

Just be more organised an plan better activities ahead of time

She isn’t the taxi service for her SIL, it’s the other way round. She’s too cheap to hire a car, so her SIL has to drive around, but shock horror - she has to work it around school pick ups! 🤦‍♀️

Yes state specific, and in some cases depends on whether building serves food or not.

If only they had better rules against gun ownership.

Yes, its a bit concerning that someone who cant work out how to get public transport is in charge of a gun 🙄

How is she trapped? No-one's suggesting she isn't allowed to leave the house. Even if she doesn't want to hire a car, public transport round there is pretty good.

Hopefully she feels as trapped as the animals that she kills!

Has she gone back to the wonderful Us of A yet?

Go by train?

You have to be back for school pickups bt it's the Easter hols, they will have a mininimum of 2 weeks off?! Take the kids to spectrum, very local to u inc swimming, water slides, ice skating etc, tons of things in that area for everyone, we often drive out of London especially. Maybe do more research, post Yr query on local Facebook. Even ninja warrior if they like that sort of thing. Plenty to do along the river, even kayaking lessons if it isn't raining. No point staying in and moan8ng. Even a day trip to Brighton or anywhere on the coast

I know OP is bored but suggesting the hell that is Guildford spectrum seems extreme!!!!

You can get her to drop you all to the nearest train station and you can take a train to London or any other area of interest and spend few days. Maybe not this time, but next year. I just can't believe you didn't think of it at all and you are now moaning due to your lack of planning and creativity. You can still take a train and go for a daily trip. I just don't believe that there is no train in your area, regardless how rural it is.

Stop moaning and make the change.

This is crazy. Sure, stay at MILs but go out every day! Within an hour of Aldershot you can visit London, Windsor, the New Forest, Oxford, Chessington and Thorpe Park. Within two hours you have the Dorset coast, Bath, Stratford on Avon.

To say nothing of the dozens of country parks, National Trust houses and pubs with nice walks in Hampshire! Just go out.

If MIL won’t visit you that’s one thing, but you’re not obliged to stay indoors with her for three weeks!

YANBU. English tap water does taste of bleach.