Subscribe to The Spectator this summer and get the next 10 weeks of the magazine as well as unlimited access to our website and app for just £10. Not only that, we'll send you a bottle of PIMS absolutely free. Only while stocks last, so go to www.com.combeck Spectator Out Loud.

Every week, a few of our favourite writers read out their pieces for you from the latest issue.

This week will be joined by the Australian writer Sasha O'Sullivan about how she's been stranded in the UK and she just wants to get back home.

Then we'll also be hearing from Ian Williams talking about China's Me Too moment.

And finally, Toby Young on his trip up north with his two boys.

First up is Sasha O'Sullivan.

In early March last year, I was self-isolating my flat in London.

Even though there were only a few hundred confirmed cases of COVID a day, I had met someone the week before who had tested positive.

This was before anyone knew much about the virus, but people were worried by the news coming out of China and northern Italy.

I made frantic calls to

one-one-one-one to try and get a test. No luck. Why don't you just come home? My mom and Sydney asked.

I can't, I replied. I work here as a journalist. I have a flat. I have shelves full of books too heavy

to ship back. I have a life. If it gets really bad, I'll be on the first flight home, I promise. When I made the

decision to stay, it never occurred to me that more than a year later, I would be wondering if I'd be

able to get home by Christmas 2022. There are thousands of Australian expats around the world in my

position. The border rules make it impossible for us to see loved ones unless we are willing to give up our lives abroad completely. A lottery-style system can secure a flight to Australia, but these are often cancelled at the last minute. Two weeks in hotel quarantine follow. Anyone unlucky enough to fly into an Australian city that's far from home, risks running up against further domestic border

closures between states. Take James Turbot, an Australian living in Antwerp, who rushed home to see

his mother in a Perth hospital. His flight landed in Melbourne, and from hotel quarantine, he applied

for an exemption to travel across the country to see her before she died. His request was denied.

He was forced to say his final goodbyes to his mum over a video call on a shaky Wi-Fi connection. When asked about it,

Mark McGowan, the Premier of Western Australia, said that Mr. Turbert's case was one of the issues

when you live overseas. This was just one of many egregious examples.

...