I’VE got used to the quiet, sitting in my parent’s garden under the flight path to Glasgow Airport. For 13 months it’s been blissfully and unusually peaceful, they tell me. But on Sunday our conversation was interrupted once more by the roar of jet engines overhead, as at least a couple of planes an hour flew travellers in and out. Normal service, it seems, might soon be resumed.

But, wait a minute, was it not this time last year that we were all thinking about what foreign holidays we’d be going on in August, and then finding out from a SAGE report that foreign travel was a significant contributor to the second wave of coronavirus in this country? Why don’t we learn from our mistakes?

So doggedly determined are some people to get their long overdue slice of sun, sand, sea, and sangria that one third of those questioned in a survey by ITV’s Good Morning Britain this week said they are going to ignore government guidelines to quarantine on return from an amber list holiday destination.

I mean, when there are hundreds of planes flying in and out of amber list countries why would these people think there was a problem?

The initial UK Government stance on amber list countries was unclear. George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, had said the reason why planes were still flying to and from amber list countries was in case people had to visit family and friends. The later clarification by the Prime Minister that amber list countries were not for holidaymakers clearly didn’t make a huge impression.

So, encouraged by the Government’s mixed messages and reports of the success of the vaccination programme, our intrepid travellers plan to venture forth to countries like Spain and Greece to find some new variants and come back bearing gifts for all.

More transmissible variants are appearing, with a new strain reportedly found last week in Vietnam that combines the characteristics of the variant first found in India and the variant first found in Kent. As an only half-vaccinated person, with at least two friends who’ve had one jag and now have Covid, this foreign holiday extremism is a bit lost on me. Is it really worth it?

Although I love a bit of independent travel to far-flung places that don’t have British bars, I have no interest at all in one or two weeks of lounging on a beach, blistering under the sun, constantly applying and reapplying sunscreen to over-tired toddlers, particularly if it means queuing round the block for Covid tests, wearing masks on the promenade and waiting up to 10 hours in the airport arrivals area alongside fellow travellers from God knows where.

I mean, how desperate does one have to be? Why are we so obsessed with the notion of travelling abroad when the risks are so obvious? Why has travelling abroad become a sort of God given right rather than a special privilege? And why is there so much confusion around government policy on this issue?

For those who are planning to ignore the rules they obviously didn’t get the memo about keeping their wider communities safe. Either that or they don’t care. They know that infection rates in some of the countries on the amber list are still high but somehow them getting their annual break in the sun is more of a priority.

As I’m writing that last sentence, my 21-year-old son phones to say two of his friends have tested positive for Covid-19 and he was with them watching football on Saturday night. They’d been so careful for so many months, not seeing each other except through the prism of the internet. They let their guard down, they relaxed because the vaccination roll-out was going well, they were bored and exhausted by lockdown and needed respite.They had stopped thinking about their communities and more about themselves. This is how the virus continues to thrive – our idiotic behaviour and a refusal to learn from what we already know.

When he comes home, I’ll make him do a test in the back garden. But even the Government’s easy-to-get-hold-of tests have made us take more risks. They give us a false sense of security. We wave away risk. ‘Ach, I’ll do a test.’

And we will do our test – after wandering about for days asymptomatically. How many will we have infected by the time we do our test? It’s the same with holidays. ‘Why should I quarantine when I come back from an amber list country if I’ve done a test and it’s negative?’ We seek loopholes and exceptions, we expertly re-interpret the rules to suit ourselves.

I feel utterly scunnered now. Today was the day our family was to celebrate a two-week delayed Eid. Our new clothes are hanging up pressed and resplendent, desert chilling in my fridge.

My mum, having spent two days cooking, will get a phone call from me an hour before we are due to arrive to say that we won't be there. Even though she and dad are fully vaccinated, I could not take the risk with them or other family members.

They’ll all sit out in the sun-drenched garden tonight eating roast lamb, pilau rice, chicken tikka and spinach curry as the planes continue to fly overhead. But we won't be there, we’ll be at the SECC queuing for a drive through PCR test.

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