How the Seven Sisters Cliffs Gave Me the Best Day of My Life in the United Kingdom By Menchie

At my age, I never thought I would find myself hiking for the first time. It is the kind of thing you imagine younger people doing, people with more energy, more confidence, more certainty about their bodies and what they are capable of. But life has a way of surprising you when you least expect it, and the Seven Sisters Cliffs turned out to be one of the greatest surprises of my life here in the United Kingdom.

The excitement began long before we even set foot on the trail. There was the preparation the night before, deciding what to bring, thinking carefully about what to wear, setting an early alarm so I would not miss the bus. Those small acts of getting ready for something joyful felt significant in themselves. So much of a domestic worker's preparation happens for other people, for the household, for the employer, for the family being cared for. But this preparation was entirely for me. For my own adventure. For my own happiness. And that felt quietly wonderful.

The journey to the cliffs was filled with music and laughter and the kind of easy conversation that flows naturally between people who genuinely know and care for one another. By the time we arrived, the energy in the group was electric. Before anyone even thought about climbing, there were photographs to take. Everyone found their pose, some confident, some laughing, some pretending to be more serious than they were. Then we gathered together in a wide open space under a bright and generous sun and shared a meal. Food passed between hands, flavours mingling, voices overlapping, the kind of communal eating that feels like belonging. It was simple and it was perfect.

Then came the hiking itself. The Seven Sisters Cliffs demand something from you. They are not gentle or easy. They stretch on in a way that challenges your body and tests your resolve, and by the time we reached the end of the trail, we were tired in a way that went all the way to the bone. Sweaty, aching, breathless. And completely, entirely happy. Because at the edge of all that effort was the sea, and without a second thought, we splashed into it together, cold water and all, laughing at the shock of it, not caring even slightly because the joy of that moment made everything else irrelevant.

That moment in the sea matters more than it might seem. Because for domestic workers, the body is so often a working tool rather than a source of pleasure. Long hours on your feet, hands constantly occupied, energy poured into tasks for others from morning until night. To stand in cold seawater and laugh, to feel the waves and the wind and the sun all at once, to be completely present in your own body for pure enjoyment, that is an act of reclaiming something. Something that belongs to every human being but is too often quietly taken from those who work without adequate rest, without rights, without the freedom that comes from knowing you can leave a situation that is harming you. The right to change employer without restriction is part of restoring that freedom. It means that no domestic worker has to remain in a household that exhausts them beyond what is fair or safe, with no legal way out.

After our swim came the long walk back, and it was on this walk that the day offered its most unexpected lesson. Four of us got separated from the group. We took what we were certain was the right path, only to discover it was the wrong one entirely. And here is what I want to remember about that moment. We kept laughing. We kept enjoying ourselves. We were lost, we were tired, we were behind, and we were still finding reasons to smile. Because we were together, and together made everything manageable.

We eventually found our way to the meeting point and reunited with the rest of the group. Nobody had been truly left behind. And that reunion, small as it might sound, carried a warmth that I will not forget easily. It is the same warmth I feel when I think about what it would mean for domestic workers to have the right to renew the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa without the constant fear of being cut off, of having the path forward suddenly close without warning. Getting lost on a hiking trail is an adventure. Getting lost in an immigration system with no clear route forward and no guarantee of being able to stay is something far more frightening. Renewal means there is always a way back. Always a meeting point to reach.

By the time the day ended, every face in the group told the same story. Exhaustion, yes. But underneath the tiredness was something brighter. A happiness that had pushed everything else aside, at least for those hours. The worries that domestic workers carry every day, about their status, about their security, about the future, had quieted. Not because they had disappeared, but because joy had been loud enough to fill the space they usually occupy. That is what the right to settlement can do in a more lasting way. It quiets the worry permanently.

It replaces the constant uncertainty with the solid ground of knowing that the years invested in this country are recognised, honoured, and rewarded with the right to stay. I have built a life here in the United Kingdom. Not just a working life, but a real one, with community and friendship and days that belong entirely to me. The members of the Voice of Domestic Workers are my second family here, and on that clifftop, in that cold seawater, on that wrong path walked with laughter, they showed me again exactly what that means. Family shows up. Family waits at the meeting point. Family makes sure nobody is left behind.

The right to British citizenship is the fullest expression of that belonging.

It is the acknowledgement that domestic workers who have built lives here, who have formed families and communities and memories on British soil, are not temporary additions to this country. They are part of it. They have earned the right to call it home not just in their hearts, which they already do, but in law, in status, in every official and permanent sense of the word.

I will never forget this hiking experience. Not the aching legs or the cold water or the wrong turn taken with laughter. Not the shared meal under the open sky or the photographs taken before the climb or the music on the bus going there. And not the feeling, at the end of that long and beautiful day, of being exactly where I was supposed to be, surrounded by people I love, in a country I have chosen, living a moment that was entirely and joyfully mine.

Thank you, VODW family. For the memories, and for everything still to come.

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