[Closed] Covid Christmas - staying away from home

I don't see any problem in that.

It's advice not the law.

A mate of mine is very strict on his 'rules' but he's currently at a private cottage in Cornwall - lives in High Peak (T3).

Go for it I'd say.

We are very strict with the rules. i.e. not been to a pub indoors (when they were open) since March! Shop online for everything so can't remember last time i even went in a shop.

Just dont want to be turned away at the boarder (tiny chance of being stopped) or fined (dont think they can)

Advice not Law

Some of the advice in Scotland has been put into law

This would just be travel from England to England

We're in a similar position but the place we booked back in July (which is cancellable) is in North Wales. We'd be travelling from a T3 area on the 26th, coming back on the 29th.

We just don't want to break life rule 1 as we've been sticking to the Covid rules more or less to the letter, can't think of any we've broke anyway.

As its advisory there's some element of how you wish to interpret the risks. For example in the Covid spreading permitted period of the 23-27th is there more or less risk of 3 households sitting in the same house with a small window open or two of you in a cottage ? I think you know the answer.

👍

We’re in a similar position but the place we booked back in July (which is cancellable) is in North Wales. We’d be travelling from a T3 area on the 26th, coming back on the 29th.

If nothing changes, the current *law* in Wales is that you must be out of Wales on 27th if you're normally live in tier 3.(28th if you live in NI).

Let’s look at it with common sense.

Legally you can do exactly that a few days different to your plan, and additionally meet up with other family members.

Your option is far lower risk than what is legally allowed.

but you can travel anywhere from the 22nd – 28th

Is that a fact. I'd been wondering about that. So it's actually seven days that we can wander is it?

You cant join up with your Christmas bubble until the 23rd and that finishes on the 27th. But they have taken the advisory about not travelling from the 22nd - 28th and also staying at hotels etc. Presumably to allow you to travel a long distance to see your bubble which might take you more than a day

as above really, common sense, not like you are meeting up with a load of people, or driving around testing your eyesight, or going to a castle when the whole of the UK is in full lock down.
It's just the 2 of you. go for it.

You need agreement of the holiday cottage company you book through.

I’m currently in a holiday cottage on the Llyn Peninsula. Couldn’t get much more remote.

However I had to pursued the agent that I wasn’t braking any rules coming here, they had already sort of cancelled the booking

The holiday company was the surprising thing, they were desperate to 'bend the rules' and took the booking no probs

Unlike a similar company who rang us up when Sheffield first went into tier 3 in Oct and advised us that we should be cancelling our Oct holiday. So we didn't go away in Oct.

Thanks @tillydog news to have a proper look but doubt we'll be going anyway.

Hard not to cite the behaviour of Cummings when people ask “what can we get away with” type questions…

During the week away we dont want to:

- use the local hospital

What you plan to do isn’t always what happens.

Soooo......

Is this new ‘stay local’ advisory or in law like the new tier 4 rules down south?

Stay at home.

Pretty sure it's law. I wouldn't risk it.

And this is why its spreading again. Regardless of the rules you do not need a holiday, many of us would like one but we don't need one, not like people who need cancer treatment or emergency surgery.

This is like the working class version of I can’t go skiing thread.

Another ‘I want to break the rules, but I’d like to assuage my guilt by seeking the approval of strangers’ thread. FFS.

Travel
You can continue to travel within your area for reasons such as:

travelling to venues that are open
for work
for education
to access voluntary, charitable or youth services
because of caring responsibilities
for moving home
to visit your support bubble
to receive medical treatment
You should avoid travelling outside your area and reduce the number of journeys you make wherever possible.

Walk or cycle where you can and plan ahead and avoid busy times and routes on public transport. Where that is not possible and you need to travel. Read safer travel guidance.

Avoid car sharing with anyone from outside your household or your support bubble – read guidance on car sharing.

You must not travel if you are experiencing any coronavirus symptoms, are self-isolating as a result of coronavirus symptoms, are sharing a household or support bubble with somebody with symptoms, or have been told to self-isolate after being contacted by NHS Test and Trace.

I’m sure all the people commenting in the last few minutes are in the new teir 4 or will still be mixing with family on Christmas Day. I’m not in a Tier 4 location.

I want to go to a remote cottage and not mix with any other people I just have to travel to get there.

But the new rules don’t affect Meadowhall being packed with 11,000 people everyday on the run up to Christmas

Waiting for the gov website to be updated but it seemed to me to just be advisory

Yes, spud I’m asking on here to clarify the Law, not to ask for permission. Every thing about travel which you just posted is advisory and not the Law.

I’m sure all the people commenting in the last few minutes are in the new teir 4 or will still be mixing with family on Christmas Day. I’m not.

You’re wrong. I’m in 3 I’ve stuck to the rules from day one to protect my family. For the first time in my life I won’t see my parents at Christmas to protect them. Meanwhile selfish ****s think the rules don’t apply to them.

T3 here, and I work on the response to this health emergency, so forgive me for my p*** boiling when we constantly have to clarify for folks what is actually quite clear.

For the first time in my life I won’t see my parents at Christmas to.

I also have stuck to to the rules see above.

Did you go for a walk or a cycle today outdoors and didn’t meet anybody you know? If you did then, like I did today also, then what is the difference if I do the same 100miles away from my house in a remote more rural location than next to a city like I did today.

If it’s the law then I will follow it. But as of this morning the government didn’t see fit to make it the Law they saw fit to advise me, not tell me. It is not clear yet if that has changed

Did you go for a walk or a cycle today outdoors and didn’t meet anybody you know? If you did then, like I did today also, then what is the difference if I do the same 100miles away from my house in a remote more rural location than next to a city like I did today.

No I didn’t I’m at work. The difference your travelling a 100 miles to a different area when asked not to during a pandemic. The risk is very small yes but still possible for you to help transmit the virus between areas.

Rule 1

I'm with Rik on this one - zero change to risk for anyone if you are still just staying in with the same people but in another house. If you're out buying food or bumping into others then Drac has a point.

If it was me, I'd go, but I'd take the supplies I need with me.

Not really commented on anything around this but here goes..

1. The Christmas 5 day thing was always ****ing ridiculous
2. Just stay at home anything else frankly is selfish and a form of self entitlement
3. This is not WW2 its probably going to last 18 months- nothing is being rationed - no ones getting bombed - no one is sending their sons to get killed. Manay of my relatives spent years away from home in WW2 (prison camps, evacuation, overseas.
4 People if this is the worst thing in your lifetime then you are lucky.
5. Just get on with it
6. Loneliness will not kill someone (depression will however)
7. We have become soft and entitled

difficult to argue with any of that.

I'm with "oldmanmtb2"
I've stuck with the rules no matter if they are advisory or law to protect myself and my family, i don't enjoy wearing masks not seeing friends etc but I accept that is how it is and when you consider what generations before us went through, frankly this is a piece of p*ss.
You have a roof over your head, food on the table and a shit load of TV to watch get over it and grow the **** up.

Also tier 3 and have been for months as I'm in the North West. Its feels more like 18 months for me, I lost my job June 2019, also lost my car and disposable income so 2019 was not a barrel of laughs either, nor did it involve much going out. Started work again the day before the first lockdown, have worked from home since. We've limited going out to the essentials, maybe eaten out twice in the brief 6 week period when we weren't under restrictions.

The guidance is clear, stay at home, can you guarantee you won't come into contact with someone whilst away? No you can't, what if you get hurt walking in the mountains for example?

No you can’t, what if you get hurt walking in the mountains for example?

We leave him it’s just guidance to rescue him.

I wouldn't, travelling just feels wrong. Was booked to go over to Arran for a days walking tomorrow (moved the date a few times due to tier changes), just moved it til end of March.

And that's within the county.

I was in tier 2 on Tuesday, now in tier 4. Due to my current living arrangements this means that my "Christmas" with my 10 year old daughter will be a boxing day picnic lunch and a walk in the woods. I won't be allowed into her house to see her open her presents from me. God I love BoJo

I suspect within the next week your booking will be cancelled anyway.
I live in a newly declared Tier 4 area, I had no intention of going to see my parents this Christmas because it wouldn't be sensible, my mother is 90, she has a life long respiratory illness, she has dementia, she has just spent a week in hospital with a heart condition that she was advised would cause her death with a week if she didn't go in. I'm not sure I'll physically see her alive again.
We can't visit my partner's mother because she died earlier this year.
I can't visit my aunt because she died earlier this year. Or my partner's aunt because she died earlier this year.
I'm expected to work 1600 hours a year, this year I've worked about 2400.
We'd quite like a holiday away. We're not going to get one.
It's shit isn't it?
You can holiday next year. Look forward to that.

And aP drops the mic.

God I love BoJo

It's nothing to do with him, b it's a virus, it changes, it kills people - whoever was in charge world have done the same.
Re T2 to T4: well tbh the South had been treated softly as usual and as a result those in London have taken the piss (this is straight from friends/relatives who live in London) - time to get real.
There should have been a T4 so along.

I'm not seeing any family at xmas but that's not advisory or the law as far as I know, I just don't like them.

Guidance says "shouldn't", not "can't" - I've WFH since March, Mrs Pondo's a teacher and the government has had much to say about the risks they *must* expose themselves to with two thirds of ****-all support to mitigate that risk. We were going to head away where we need come into contact with no-one but people we walk past in the open air, but that's a no-no, right? We just have to stick with walking past people in the open air where we live? What about if we promise not to leave the cottage? What if we have to test our eye sight by driving for several hours?

It's just a holiday, it's genuinely no big deal but **** - we so badly need to emigrate to New Zealand where the incompetence, corruption and utter ****wittedness of the government isn't so strikingly, farcically outrageous. 🙁

Unless our democratically elected members of parliament are sneaking into people's houses at night like a malevolent tooth fairy and infecting people in their sleep I'm struggling to see how the ongoing increase in infection is logically linked directly to the government.

I'd suggest your ire and angst ought to be better focused on the idiots who are ignoring what it pretty clear advice aimed at reducing infection rates.

Maybe you've missed it, but our democratically elected government have been rubbish at handling Covid (see: Johnson's U turn over a Christmas lockdown from about 12 hours ago after saying just this very week that Christmas would not be cancelled, for instance, or the UK's death rate compared to other countries, or how they awarded PPE contracts, or (this was awhile ago) how a special advisor totally broke lockdown rules and not only did they not get fired, they even had the PM go on telly to say "d'you know what, he did what anyone else would have done", or how the government refused to help feed hungry kids until a bloody Premiership footballer had to remind them of their responsibilities, or how the PM bragged about going to a hospital and shaking peoples' hands shortly before joking about Operation Last Gasp, etcetera etcetera et-frickin-cetera). So I totally get that people not wearing masks, not socially distancing, attending Covid protest marches and spreading anti-vax conspiracy nonsense are idiots and deserve my anger, but our government, who have led us to the one of the worst death rates on the planet and refused to accept any responsibility for their catastrophic mismanagement of this disaster (and hey, let's not forget the pig-headed refusal to countenance any delay to the Brexit fiasco they're firing in our direction right in the midst of the biggest global health emergency our species has ever faced), I'm going to reserve almost all of my anger for them, I think.

This.