See you sometime in Britain
Last updated 1 month, 2 weeks ago
My husband and I live in Caleta de Fuste, a sleepy touristdestination in the Canaryislands, Spain. I don’t feel like getting into detail about why we’re here, so I’ll keep it brief: while in Britain I applied for a visa to stay as the spouse of my husband. Unfortunately it didn’t work out, and although I stayed in Britain for some time while we figured things out, that was a fundamentally untenable way to live.
Thus, we arrived in Caleta where my husband’s parents had a property we could live in indefinitely. We had no plans except a vague notion of at some point returning to the British isles. Life ever since has been unpleasant.
Caleta is truly awful. It’s clearly made for tourists, not people looking to actually live a life. There’s an uncountable number of bars, just as many souvenirshops that sell pointless knickknacks, not to mention that absolutely unbearable heat.
In the meantime, we needed something to do, and for some reason we settled on opening a shop. The experience with that shop has been a stressful, frustrating nightmare that’s thoroughly cemented my despisal of capitalism. Although my husband and I formally own the shop, my father-in-law is the one who makes all the decisions—a man who’s a disgusting capitalist who wants you to shut up and do as you’re told, evades his taxes, becomes “very unhappy” with your “attitude” if you suggest that you stay home because you suggest that you’re a little sick and don’t want to spread that sickness to whatever poor soul steps into the shop, and who not just once but twice hit me with the ever-classy “I’m taking this from someone without a penny to their name?” during arguments.1
Thankfully the shop has failed as a prospect, allowing my husband and I to at last raise our eyes towards the horizon. Our prospects used be to stay out here for at least a few years until we could sell the shop, but now we’re looking at moving to Britain and living there for maybe half of a year, alternating between staying there and in Caleta, and in the long run living in Britain full time.
For that I’ll need a visa. The process of obtaining a visa is anxietyinducing on its own, and the fact that I’ve failed once doesn’t make it better. The only way to find out what my prospects for living in Britain are is, however, to face this ordeal.
What will we do once we make it to Britain? Our plans are currently to live in Manchester, where my brother-in-law also lives with his girlfriend. I’ll want to get a job, but due to my lack of credentials it’ll have to be something lowlevel—maybe as a clerk at a Co-op. Maybe I’ll join a political party.
Regardless, we can start living again. I don’t know when we’ll make it to that point, so for now all I can say is “see you sometime in Britain.”
Footnotes:
The truly ironic thing is that he’s a Corbynite, contemptuous of the Tories and everything to the right of them, including Reform UK and its frontman Nigel Farage. What he in his heart means aside, I’ve heard him say things which would make you think he’s an old socialist revolutionary. He’s not though, because he’s a member of the capitalist class who doesn’t like paying corporationtax.↩