Why we’re going against the tide and storming the beaches abroad this summer

As super spreader events go, the Wembley clash between England and Scotland two weeks ago is up there with the Cheltenham races last March.

Shortly after 20,000 Scots travelled to London, evidence started emerging north of the border of a mini Covid surge in the 20 to 39 age group, principally among men. The Tartan Army had packed onto trains, crowded into Leicester Square and its pubs, forgot to socially distance or wear masks and then brought back more of the delta variant to Scotland.

But, unlike Cheltenham, when the pandemic was fresh and vaccines undiscovered, the spike has not led to an increase in hospitalisations or deaths among otherwise healthy cases.

Without being an official pilot for mass gatherings, the Euros, like the G7, shows that it is possible to mix normally now that the most vulnerable in the population are protected. They also show, as do the large gatherings on Centre Court and, a few weeks earlier, at Ascot, that some people are having fun.

That was my only thought when I happened to find myself on a train the day of the auld enemy fixture and heard the roar of the fans and inhaled their intoxication, on the 5.48 am from Waverley, and later that evening in the West End.

If they could travel the 400 miles between Edinburgh and London, no entreaties from either Boris Johnson or Nicola Sturgeon were going to stop me going a little further, to France.

Every summer for the past 20 years, I have gone with my family to a corner of the Ardeche, to visit old friends and seek uninterrupted Provencal sunshine. While obviously, this is leisure, these trips to beaches abroad have also been essential to gird my southern bones before digging in for the Scottish winter.

Nothing yet has stopped me, not work, not (quite) funds, and not even last year’s coronavirus, which allowed us a precious window of opportunity to cross the Channel and get back again between lockdowns.

But as with many Britons, this year, the prospect of our summer ritual is receding by the day as much of Europe conspires against us, and our own government insists we’re better off at home. With less than a fortnight until liftoff, the odds of making it seem lower than in 2020, despite the safeguards of inoculation and testing that didn’t exist a year ago.

Friends and neighbours are unsympathetic to our desire to visit beaches abroad. Go to Orkney, said one of them this week, and explore the archaeological site. Someone showed us their photos of Skye. Others mentioned a campervan. My sister has booked a house in Cornwall, and even the most dependable travellers are conceding that beaches abroad are not worth the hassle.

I’m regretting saying this already, but I think it is. When we left the EU, we didn’t agree to take holidays off the table, but our closest European friends have become our foes, with the fault on both sides.

It has been said that those in Britain who were most in favour of Europe are now most against it, at least as a destination. Not going away on holiday is the new moral high ground.

Perhaps understandably, countries on the Continent have responded to Britain’s post-Brexit xenophobia by pretending they don’t want us either. We had no rational reason to put places like Portugal on an amber list, so Portugal, formerly so welcoming, imposed a 14-day quarantine on us.

Across Europe, rises in positive tests are among the unvaccinated young. Like our unvaccinated young, they are unlikely to be troubling the hospitals. And yet, ever more stringent restrictions are being invented on both sides of the Channel like an alternative Euros to see which nation can inflict the most harm on their tourist industries.

So far, France (knocked out of the football, ha!) is winning, challenged only by Germany, which doesn’t depend so much on British visitors. As there are now no justifiable excuses to bar either elderly vaccinated holidaymakers or essentially invulnerable youths, ministers here and in Europe are making it up as they go along.

A couple of British honeymooners interviewed on the news said they booked at the eleventh hour to avoid the inevitable unannounced travel bans and still had to ditch their Portuguese trip and swap it (for Ibiza) when they arrived at the airport.

The rules, like the rulers, have taken leave of their senses. The latest from the EU is that fully vaccinated Brits cannot enter if they were dosed with Indian AstraZeneca, which is WHO approved and as effective as the UK or European manufactured versions.

We have several routes planned for our holiday, including sneaking into France from Belgium, if the Dutch let us disembark from the ferry at Ijmuiden (not looking good at the moment). Landing on the beaches was indeed easier in 1944.

Even if my husband and I could get past the French, our single jabbed daughters, and their pals still need a “pressing” reason to travel, as well as a negative PCR result. They must also subject themselves to possible random tests when there and self-isolate for seven (or is it 14?) days.

And this is supposed to be a holiday. As we won’t contemplate seeking beaches abroad without them – how often can you get the whole lot together these days? – we will look elsewhere if the French don’t want us.

Where is this pan European tit-for-tat leading? Definitely not to our desired gites in foreign parts. If we are all going to learn to live with Covid, we have to open not just our borders but our minds – yes, to the risks inherent in embracing life to the full but also to the possibilities.