I don't want a f***ing holiday, I want to see my mom!

[MooseBreath]

So sick and tired about people thinking international travel is just about going on holiday. It's not about the beach. It's not about all-inclusive drinks. It's not about wanderlust.

Making international travel illegal (which it basically has been for months already) means that people like me, who moved to the UK due to a partner's job, have been told we cannot see our families.

Soon, we will be allowed to visit friends and family in the UK in people's gardens. We can go for walks or sit in a pub garden. After that, we will be able to go into each others' homes. And that's amazing and I'm so happy for all of the people whose lives will be bettered by this.

But I want to be selfish for a moment. What about me? What about the people like me whose families are a plane away? My grandfather in has dementia. It has worsened since the start of the pandemic and he doesn't know who I am anymore. I never got the chance to see him after his diagnosis because of the restrictions. My other grandfather has been moved into longterm care and isn't expected to live much longer. I won't be able to see either of them or likely attend their funerals, even if they are 6 months down the line.

My son who was born in May 2020 will likely never meet his 4 great-grandparents. He isn't old enough to understand video calls with his grandparents and uncles. There is no telling when he will ever meet my side of the family.

When I moved here, I did so entirely under the impression that I would be free to go home whenever I needed to or wanted to. I am so close with my family and it is hard enough being an ocean away from them, but the thought of never seeing them again is unbearable. I don't know what I want to get from this thread, but I just want some posters to understand that it's not about a holiday. Not at all.

@newstart1234

I’m still very confused as to why, once the vaccine has created a herd immunity effect, in two places, what the danger is of travelling between those places. I obviously don’t think that travelling and potentially starting another epidemic is a good idea, and that’s clearly worth making personal sacrifices to avoid. But soon we will be at herd immunity level so the r number will not be able to raise about 1. The epidemic will be always dying out wherever it’s seeded. Variants will be a problem forevermore. I don’t understand why once herd immunity is reached what difference time passing will make.

Problem is not uk but abroad and rhe lack of vaccination in many places which could create the variants and bring them back to the uk of vaccines are less effective

And I’m not saying we should avoid travel , I’ll travel this year. For the shake of my mental health.
But that’s the reason why people request to ban travel abroad

So it seems that last summer was a case of being lucky. I know a few lucky people then

I know a few that travelled to Spain last year. They were single or a couple and could wfh so no lost of income and living in London so the airlines were still doing the routes
For me no route, having to pay more to go to London and lost of isolating my son.
I thought the Spanish situation would get better by late September / October but that never happened

@EasterIssland I completely sympathise as I’m also Spanish. I now live in a capital city (outside the UK) which despite being one, pre-pandemic only offered 4 direct flights a week to my city back home. They haven’t run for almost 13 months now and neither airline, Ryanair or easyJet, know when they’ll be resuming the route. I’ve been to Spain quite a few times since last March, but always on connecting flights and I’m sick to death of using the Frankfurt/Paris/Zurich/Madrid airports for connections.

What used to be a £30 return, 3h flight has now become £200 and 10 hours, with multiple stopovers. PP makes a point about air travel changing in the next few years... many of these cheap direct routes from/to smaller airports will likely not resume for some time. It’s tough when like you say, there’s also children in tow and quarantines to consider.

[quote SwedishK]@BusyLizzie61

But that's my point. I don't even have the option to quarantine and do all of that. My country will let me enter, but that's of no use since the UK doesn't allow me to leave!

I'm not going to a wedding, a funeral or care for critically ill parents. I have old parents, who may not be around in 6 months or a year from now, but they are not critically ill so I can't go and see them.

If my parents live in a town an hour away, I could still go and see them and form a bubble with at least one of them as they both live alone, but I can't even do that.

I think if you are not in the same situation, it's perhaps hard to understand how it feels. When I moved here, it wasn't with the idea that I would at some point be banned from visiting my family.[/quote]
You have the right to leave to live there though. So you have choices. They're just not palatable and what you want them to be.

Ultimately, a minority impacted for the safety of the majority is a small price to pay.
I disagree with your statement about another town, there are thousands who haven't seen their parents due to tiers, lockdowns and restrictions and could all no date state bubbling too....

Many people in UK who haven't seen their UK relatives either, though not sure that helps. DP's parents live less that 2 hours drive by road but either our area in restrictions, or theirs.

That’s what’s called a false choice busy.

Hopefully people can find loopholes to visit family abroad in the next few months like my family and friends have been doing in the U.K. for the last 9 months.

The biggest difference for families in the U.K. is that in exceptional circumstances travel and childcare support bubbles are possible. Not so if your abroad and flights and other transport has been cancelled. That’s the stress for me at least. I wouldn’t mind not seeing family on a regular basis because I wouldn’t want to contract or spread Covid.

@MooseBreath I think we might be from the same home country (based on your username and some of your comments) I desperately want to go home and see my family too. My mom was diagnosed with Cancer last year and I also had a baby at the end of Feb 2020. My 3 year old keeps asking when we will go to see grandma and grandpa again and it's so so hard. We can not afford the 3 day hotel quarantine at cost per person.
Sending a very unmumsnetty hug

So sorry to hear all of your situations. It's good to have a thread where most posters can empathize and are in the same boat. Being abroad right now is very hard; there truly is no end in sight for us.

@MissMooMoo We are likely from the same place - I'm not exactly elusive of where I'm from, I just wanted everyone abroad to have a place to vent (the inclusivity seems typical of our home country)!

My DH doesn't have the right to live in my home country though. We would have to go through an extensive visa process. We are also responsible for DH's disabled sister should his parents become ill, which is far more likely due to Covid. Moving to my home country isn't just an unpalatable choice, it's not an option.

Yeah, our situation is nothing like "my parents live 2 hours away but we haven't spent time with them either because of restrictions." Oh really? Never once drove by for a chat on the doorstep, in the entire past year? Made a decision not to form a support bubble, but you could have? Not planning to see them again in just a few short months, all being well?

Anyway. For those who can actually understand where I'm coming from....last saw family in August 2019. I haven't been anywhere aside from my neighborhood and my workplace for the past year. I am sick of everything, but most of all of listening to my daughter cry in bed at night because she hasn't seen her aunties in so long.

@CousinKrispy Same, it’s not comparable if family are close by, I just would have been to see them in the space of a year.

There isn't a league table of how hard this has been on people though.

It's shit if you can't travel abroad to see your family.

It's shit if UK restrictions mean that you haven't been able to see you family for a year.

It's shit if you don't have any family.

It's shit if you don't have any family who you actually want to visit.

It's shit. And it's fine, even necessary, to vent.

DH's older sisters - 81 and 75 - live half an hour's drive away from us. We haven't seen them since last summer when it was allowed and then only once

@Davros you can see them from today: in a garden or for a picnic or walk. None of us can fly abroad for a while.

Point taken.

Even if we are in England the advice is still stay local, can't stay in hotels overnight etc. so if you aren't within a reasonably short drive of your friends/family the earliest you can hope to see them is the end of May.

Absolutely worse if you are abroad though because there isn't even talk of any dates for travel