We took off a week at the beginning of the holidays when Thomas's sister was here, and another last week as we had some odds and ends to get sorted. The first was a holiday in the sense that we went up north with a tent for four days in the sunshine. The second was less so as we had one day trip in the grey to celebrate Charlotte's magnificent straight A school-leaving results (she got an A in all 17 SQA exams she took in high school 🌝), but we mostly spent it getting the cooker fixed, and filling in tax forms, having meetings with the accountant, attending family birthday celebrations etc.
Neither, of course, was a holiday in the normal sense. When you work for yourself, a holiday isn't a week's paid leave. It is a week you don't work, don't get paid and which therefore results in your chasing your tail for the following month trying to fit in the five days you dared not to work. Unpaid holidays and contractual obligations are the bane of the freelance life...
As a mixed EU couple, facing mounting concern over a no-deal Brexit, what we really needed this year was to get as far away from the UK and its mind games as possible. While many of you are worrying about the financial prospects of a no-deal Brexit or which brand of baked beans to stockpile, those of us in a 'mixed' marriage face the prospect on March 29 that he loses his right to work and live in the UK, to renew his mortgage package and continue using our GP, on the very same day as I lose my right to flee to the continent with him. In the no-deal scenario, everything that has been negotiated for EU citizens hits the fan and no guidelines for their treatment will exist. We will have to rely on the unilateral goodwill of the Tory party (don't choke on your breakfast!) When we apply to renew our mortgage deal next summer, our bank will have no guidelines on whether he is eligible so I can probably work out the answer to our application already. We are hearing daily of EU citizens whose landlords are refusing to renew their leases as they do not know what their tenants' status will be. And where does that leave children like mine? UK citizens whose parent has no rights in the country in which they were born?
So, this year we could really have done with seven weeks island-hopping in the Cyclades or sitting wifi-less on some remote Mediterranean olive farm. As someone who works from home, I usually crave people on a holiday. My ideal is a city break or a busy beach just to remind myself I am not alone and isolated on this planet, but this year, I really think escaping the world would have been nice. Spending some time alone and unstressed with my husband would have been wonderful as it would have helped us to have built up some mental strength to face the terrifying seven months that lie ahead.
Already yesterday Whatsapp was buzzing with the mums in Anna's class trying to arrange the p7 prom in June 2019. I had to tick that I was interested, but in reality, I have no idea if I will be there taking photos of Anna in a pretty dress, or if I'll have had to pull her from school and leave the country. I'm already a nervous wreck and term hasn't yet begun.
Yesterday Anna actually said to me - When you take this year's back to school photo mum, we should try to make it extra-special in case it is the last ever one here in my home. Ten year olds shouldn't be living with stresses like that!
I am starting the new term more exhausted and stressed than I finished the last one and that is so far from what I need right now.
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