I miss the simple things – having a drink or an ice-cream. You can’t do that on £41 a week

theguardian.com:

My wife and I are staying with her family this week – her sister, parents and grandparents, all of whom are seeking asylum for the same reasons as us. In our home country we all lived together, but now they are accommodated 30 miles away. We don’t see them often because it costs too much to get here. The travel is £8 each way and we live on £41 a week each, which has to cover food, toiletries, cleaning products, clothes, everything. We have to save a little each month to afford these journeys.

For me, that’s one of the hardest parts of being an asylum seeker – getting away, making one day different from the next. Nobody is forcing you to remain in your accommodation, but the cost of doing anything else, of going anywhere else, sometimes makes you feel as if you’re in prison.

In this weather, you want to get out. You imagine a day trip somewhere to the countryside or to the beach. It would be a distraction, an escape from the inside of your head where you’re always managing stress, always wondering what will happen with your asylum application, how much longer you’ll have to wait, not knowing where you will be next year. But you can’t just walk out the door when you are living on our budget. You can’t just get on a bus or a train, or stop in a cafe, you can’t buy a drink when you’re thirsty, or an ice-cream when you’re hot, or a meal deal for £3.50 when you’ve allowed yourself £2 maximum for every meal. We try to find new ways to spend our time, to create something different in our lives, but it’s difficult without resources.

Last year I found a couple of bikes that someone was giving away. My wife and I would cycle to different places, sometimes I’d ride for hours and hours, not really knowing where I was going, just