Is travelling abroad worth it? Forget the factor 50, it’s all bar codes, locator forms and tests

Bogged down by Covid travel rules, Charlotte Cripps reassess her spiritual beliefs about abundance and heads off on a pre-holiday shopping spree

(Illustration by Amara May)

Be careful what you wish for. Lola’s new passport arrived in the nick of time. The holiday to Portugal is on: is a pastel-de-nata binge on the cards? I’m not sure if this trip with my 89-year-old dad, Lola, 5, and Liberty 3, is a good idea or a potential nightmare... But my God, I need a break from my dog. Just the thought of being able to walk barefoot across the sand without worrying about him terrorising people for food feels liberating.

But first I have to get there without any of us getting Covid or getting pinged by the NHS Track and Trace. The bureaucracy is hell. Forget the factor 50, it’s all bar codes, locater forms, Covid tests and vaccine travel passports. It’s taken all the fun out of it.

The simple pleasure of browsing the mini toiletries in Boots and obsessing over which bikini to buy is lost on me. I’m just bogged down with the paperwork, dotting the “Is” and crossing the “Ts”. I still manage to get a bit of pre-holiday shopping in for my dad whose new elasticated shorts fell down to his ankles while we did our Covid fit-to-fly test. But I’ve left it to the last minute to plan anything to wear at all.

All I have is a thick folder of paperwork – and a maternity bikini because that’s what I last wore when I went on holiday. It doesn’t fit, luckily, thanks to the juice diet, losing all the baby weight, and deflating from a Michelin Man lookalike to normal.

I can’t buy one at the airport because I will be knee-deep in forms to fill out and trying to match up the right bar codes. I’m not going to beg, borrow or steal one. So I drag the kids with me to Melissa Odabash to get a last-minute bikini in the sale. I try not to fret after guiltily blowing the equivalent of my weekly food budget on it. That’s when I spot an old friend with her high maintenance 18-year-old son on Westbourne Grove. They are down for a shop-until-you-drop day from up north. It puts everything in perspective.

The son looks more like a movie star than a millennial snowflake with Gucci hipster glasses perched on his nose. He is wearing a Hackett petrol blue suit and twirling a Burberry umbrella. His cashmere socks cost more than the top half of my bikini. He smells of Floris aftershave and is off to buy a silk Liberty mask and an £800 chunky designer cardigan.

It’s always “half-price” and “a real bargain”. His mum says: “I have to give him credit.” “I’m sure you do,” I think, “it must cost you a fortune.” But she means praise. She continues: “He might spend a lot. But he’s got great taste and he only buys a few nice things. At least they last.”

They are down every other weekend. I once got carted off to a Ferrari showroom with them where he sat in a car asking tons of questions with no cash to splash.

She looks a bit stressed – understandably. Is she continually forking out hard-earned cash? How is he affording this lifestyle? It’s a total mystery. My dad asks me if the mum is involved in drug importation? I doubt it. It’s not like they have flash cars or go on Maldives mini-breaks on private jets. It’s just he loves the best.

The son goes off to his favourite restaurant in Mayfair to eat a £45 steak and have a glass of port – so I ask her back to mine. He won’t even pop into mine anymore because he doesn’t want Muggles’s dog hairs on his clothes. I don’t blame him, considering the cost of them.

Is this a case of wanting to fix everything with perfectionism? To hide low self-worth under expensive items? By the number of bags full of his designer clobber that she’s carrying – I am gobsmacked.

Where is he going to wear all the beautiful clothes? She pulls out pale pastel T-shirts that cost £90 each. Then I think – why am I judging him? If only I’d had my head screwed on I might be packing some summer clothes that actually fit me.

Why not luxuriate in the softest organic cotton and woollen cashmere garments and play Grand Theft Auto all day? I can suddenly hear Deepak Chopra’s calming voice narrating his audiobook Creating Affluence: The A-to-Z Steps to a Richer Life. “Go first-class, all the way, and the universe responds by giving you the best.” He says it like a mantra: “Ultimately getting for ourselves the best of everything. People with wealth consciousness settle only for the best.”

They have taken a leaf direct from that book, without even reading it. They’re already living one of the spiritual laws of success. I’m inspired. Maybe I need to revise – get back on the program and in tune with the laws of the universe.

The mum’s phone rings: “What? They are Gucci trainers? How much? £610.” She has to meet her son in Regent Street. He’s not sure whether to get the plain white pair or the neon ones.

“Can I come with you?” I ask her. “I need a new wardrobe for Portugal. I deserve it.” I grab my credit card and waltz out of the door with Liberty in the pram and Lola on her scooter. This time it’s not Poundland for toys, I’m shopping for me. I have money. I am rich. I can buy what I like. Overdrafts don’t exist. Abundance. Zen. Va com Deus.