Many of the uks highest infection rates are in london and the south east of england, where the new variant of coronavirus is believed to be particularly prevalent. Millions of people have had to change their Christmas Plans at the last minute, or abandon them completely. Our home editor mark easton has been to thurrock in essex, one of the worst affected areas. Thurrocks Christmas Wonderland is closed by law. The vast Lakeside Shopping Centre almost deserted on what should have been one of the busiest days. But santa clauss grotto, another sign of the times. This part of essex appears to be the current epicentre of the outbreak, with the fastest rising rate of infection anywhere in tier 4. Plans have been thrown into chaos. People are making the best of it, but the joy and good will of christmas 2020 have been replaced by fear, frustration, and, in some cases, fury. Yes, im saving christmas, and then, no. Youre not having christmas. How do you feel about that . Im really angry. What the Prime Minister is offering is doolally. Who is doolally . The Prime Minister. Really . Why . He should have locked it from the beginning, not now. I cant see my daughter, cant see my son, nephew, niece, brother. It was all planned for. We just have to change everything, you know, we have already bought food. It would have been nice to not make those plans, and then have the disappointment. I had to bury someone on wednesday, we found out we were going into tier 3, and then tier 4. I was in a state all weekend over it, to be fair. It is not very nice, having to cancel christmas. Bit of a touch, really. I was meant to be going to the mother in laws, but i aint going now, so it was a right touch. See you later. Well, i was hugely impressed by your lights. While dad was isolating after being in hospital, the page family determined they would decorate their home for christmas like never before. Its just been a horrendously awfulyear, so, ithink the lights help everyone. Even when we are driving around, looking around at other people lights, it cheers you up. On this, the darkest day of the year, people are looking for light. Finding Christmas Joy where they can. Mark easton, bbc news, thurrock, in essex. Now its time for the travel show. This week on the show santa locked down in lapland. We try to offer all the visitors that Christmas Spirit and joy, despite of the challenging times. Fixing the worlds longest wall with the help of technology. Is it true that 30 of the original wall has vanished . I think so, yeah. And a little warm holiday glow as months of enforced separation comes to an end for one couple. Hello and welcome to the programme, coming to you this week from a rather rainy norfolk in the east of england. Well, christmas is most definitely on its way, and so many of us love to travel during december but unfortunately this year isnt quite the same. Still, sit tight, stay patient and let us bring the world to you. First up, traditionally, many of us love to travel around this time of year, but with so many restrictions currently, whats happening in those places where christmas is a year round obsession . Well, it feels like a long time ago now, but around this time last year i was in the village of thursford for the uks biggest annual christmas show. For over a0 years, people have been flocking here to see a traditional all singing, all dancing seasonal spectacular thats broken records and become a regular fixture in the christmas calendar of many people here in the uk. 150 artists take part each year, and last year, for one night only, i was lucky enough to be one of them. Of course this year, things will be different. But christmas is far from cancelled. Sadly theres no show instead the vast performance spaces and grounds have been transformed into a huge, dazzling light trail for people to explore. Since first opening back in 1977, the cushing family have run the site and put on the annual christmas extravaganza. This is your baby, youve built this up from nothing, this business. Yes. How hard was it personally for you to take the decision not to have the performers here . Well, it was rather like a bereavement to stop it, so yes youre right, i have worked on christmas here for over a0 years. It starts almost as soon as one show is finished, and to produce it, write it, and direct it has been a major part of my life. So it is notjust me, its the team i had around me, which have all, a lot of them have been living in the area for 20 years or more, the production team. So that emotional loss was difficult to cope with. In theory you could have shut down entirely, kept hold of those pennies and waited until 2021, but you didnt, looking around, you really took steps to do something different. Really a new business. I was confident that it would work, and confident itd be a success because of the loyalty we have had from so many people, i have had literally hundreds of letters to say we are coming to yourjourney of light because weve been coming to thursford for years, and i think that when they get here they wont be disappointed, because we have been working on this sincejuly. But of course, its notjust thursford thats had to adapt this christmas. Even for santa claus himself and his helpers up in Santas Village in finnish lapland, things are a little different this year. Im antti nikander, the busy elf. My position is head of development in this village. Santa claus village is an International Tourism centre in the middle of the official hometown of santa claus, rovaniemi. We have normally more than 500,000 visitors in a year, they are coming from more than 100 countries. Christmastime is the busiest time in our village, and we will receive during the busiest days, more than 5,000 people, and now we will receive maximum one third of that amount. 2,260 kilometres from here is london finland has imposed strict measures on incoming visitors, effectively closing the borders to international tourists, which means that almost all of the visitors this year are from finland. We try to offer all the visitors that Christmas Spirit and joy, despite of these challenging times. The most valuable Christmas Present is that vaccination. After that, we are able to focus and plan for the future. Santa receives around half a million letters each year from children around the world. The elves sort them for santa in the post room and this year they have been as inundated as ever. I am riitta, riitta the elf, and i am working here in santa clauss Main Post Office at the arctic circle. This is a real post office, but also i am helping santa claus with his letters. So, children write to santa claus, they make wish lists, also they tell about their families. And the letters, they are a little bit different when they come from western countries, then they have a little story about themselves, about the childrens life and hobbies, but they have bigger lists. Because of coronavirus, the post office was forced to close this year for seven months, for the first time in its history. People, they cannot receive now, theirfamilies, but they can send a parcel. Its like santa claus sends those, although it is them. But of course the real magic happens in santas office. In grottos around the world, children traditionally meet santa and reel off their wish lists for presents. But this year, social distancing means that santa has to do most of this virtually. Although on the plus side, this does mean that a chat with santa is now open to anyone, like me earlier on today. 0h hello christa hello santa. How are you today . Very well on this dark morning in london. Christa, what do you think are you on the nice the naughty list . You know what, i think, given this year i have been stuck at home, i havent had to be naughty, santa, so i would like to think i am always on the nice list, but i think especially in 2020 i am on the nice list. So santa, tell me a bit about your year this year. Of course its difficult because we are doing it like this, people arent so close, but this is the new way to do things and everybody should think about this way to do things, because you have to be close with people, and at the moment its not possible in the normal way, so this is a very good way to do it. So i like it actually. And have you noticed any difference in the kinds of gifts that kids are wanting from santa this year . Small changes of course, the toys and those things, but quite many children want to have time with their parents, and that is quite heart warming, i think, and this is the christmas to do that. And so this year, i imagine youve got lots of questions about what your activities are going to be on Christmas Eve its your big night of the year, how is covid going to affect you this year, santa . Not too much, because thats the magic of christmas. Yes. Im going to deliver all of those presents normally, dont worry, they are going to come there, but for social distancing, please stay in bed and sleep. Back here in thursford, christmas celebrations are already in full swing. Well, i guess it cant match the energy of the big show we saw last year, but theres plenty of noise and the set is spectacular and the people here seem to be really enjoying themselves. And there are people, on a rainy night in the middle of a pandemic, which is in itself quite incredible. Still to come on the travel show were in china, watching the cutting edge science being used to restore parts of the great wall. And the couples forced apart by border closures getting back together for christmas. Up next, the latest in our series about the brand new tech being used to restore and protect our most ancient treasures. The question is this week, how do you protect a monument that is 20,000 kilometres long . Amanda headed to china to find out. This part of the great wall of china, located a two hour drive from beijing, is not where tourists normally go. Thejiankou section is perched on a Mountain Ridge at 1200 metres above sea level. You have to hike up a mountain to get here. This didntjust make it less accessible to tourists, it also made it very difficult to repair. So give me a sense what kind of shape was this section in before the repairs started, because we are sitting on a part that has been repaired. Yeah. Was it dangerous before . Yeah. Every year, maybe one or two people are dead on this period of the wall. Hiking . Hiking, yeah. Some some hiking and fallen falling down. For years, thejiankou section of the wall was considered so dilapidated, its even been given a special name, part of the wild wall. So 25 years ago, i came up with this term wild wall to differentiate it from the tourist wall. The tourist wall are the places where the wall is being rebuilt, you buy a ticket, theres often a cable car. But the wilderness wall, which is, you know, there are thousands of kilometres of it, actually constitutes the worlds greatest open air museum. William lindsay is a historian who fell so in love with thejiankou section of the wall, he moved here in the 1990s. Is it true that 30 of the original wall or walls, i should say has vanished . I think so, yeah. But repairing a section of the wall like this is not easy. You cannotjust drive up here, so getting machinery to the wall is almost impossible too. That means this repair project has had to incorporate both Cutting Edge Technology and tradition. You can see the mountains here. The machines cant come here. We have to use people. But we should use technologies to help these people to do this work better. You have seen that even in nowadays, people rebuild the walls using ancient ways they use animals to carry the bricks and they use people to carry all the bricks. 0ther bricks yeah, all the bricks on the wall we cant use any machines or mechanic ways to rebuild the wall. We use people to do this. People whose work is now being helped by Cutting Edge Technology. So can you take me through, step by step, how this process actually worked . 800 photos . And how long does it take . And if you did not have drone own footage and people had to go up and do all of this just themselves so looking at things, taking photos themselves, measuring how does that compare to this process . That drone footage was used with an algorithm to create a 3d model of the wall. It meant that every stage could be closely monitored. If, for example, 100 stones were taken off part of the wall and then had to be replaced, the engineers could refer to the 3d model of the original wall to know exactly how they needed to be put back. The project has been so successful, they are now repairing a different part of the wall at xifengkou, 300 kilometres, or 185 miles, from beijing, using the same software and the same principles. This is the second project of the rebuilding ofjiankou great wall. The third one will it start maybe next year. 0oh yeah. Thats exciting yeah. Drones . Hmm, of course laughs. Yeah, of course amanda reporting there from the great wall of china. And there will be more from our future of the past series next year. This christmas, many of us will be spending less time with our loved ones than we would like and there are some couples who have been separated because of border closures and travel bans who are desperate to see their partners. Well, tens of thousands of people in this situation have rallied together to share tips and advice, as well as their own sweet successes, and we have met one of them. Ryan ejezie ended up making the longest layover of his life when he was desperate to see his partner elena in america. And the only way he could get there was to fly to croatia and spend two weeks in quarantine before heading first to istanbul, and then finally onto the us. All i was seeing, all year, was just news. Yourejust bombarded with covid news. Its just like this travel is not happening. Lockdown is getting worse. Cases are rising. So when i started to see other people, real human beings, in the same situation, tackling the same challenges and being able to ask them just straight up on facebook and get a response, i then that planted the seed and then, i could think yes, this is possible. Love is not tourism is a grassroots Global Movement dedicated to reuniting binational couples and families who have been separated by travel bans and border closures, shutting down of the visa processes due to the pandemic. It was very meaningful to meet people, even just online, and to hear their stories. Also to hear our successes and to collaborate. I wake up in the morning and then im like lets do it lets just commit lets just go for it so friday morning, book a flight to croatia, booked two weeks airbnb. Saturday, im in croatia. Stewardess over pa on behalf of the captain and the entire crew, id like to welcome you here to zagreb. Im too deep im too too committed to this im either going to go all the way and get there or its not going to work. I was worried for sure, i was worried. I think when i initially booked everything, i got a huge rush. Im excited, im like well, ive booked this, im flying tomorrow, theres not even time. Let me pack everything, let me get to heathrow, let me get to croatia. Really empowered, im taking control of everything. I have not even told work that im going to be working in another country, havent told work im going to be in america, working in another completely different time zone. We are more than willing to quarantine before, after that is not an issue for any of us, and it never has been. We have always advocated for safe protocols where we prove that we have a real relationship and that we abide by any rules that are in the country and we will go actually above and beyond those rules if need be, because we want people to know that we want you to be safe but at the same time, we understand that love is essential and our relationships are absolutely vital right now. Only the night before i actually flew to turkey did i then check on the website just one last time. I did not get much sleep that night because im like everything is running through my head of everything that could go wrong but when the actual date came, it was just like a regular travel day. Once i finally got in, it was just like finally finally its all come i have completed it and it felt like a good accomplishment. A lot of stress was relieved from my shoulders. Just for the whole notion of the whole idea of doing a two week quarantine, or the longest layover i will ever do in my life, that was filled with a lot of sense of empowerment, of taking control of myself and taking control of my life. But when i got to america, it was just relief it was just relief that it was done. I think as a community, we give each other hope every time that we successfully reunite, one partner at a time, one family at a time. That gives us hope. There is light at the end of the tunnel. I think many of us have seen the successes in various countries, and that has motivated us to ask for the same kinds of protocols and exemptions in our own countries. Shes coming here tomorrow for a month, which is amazing. And cant wait cant wait she just has to do a quarantine in england, as is the current rules, which is a bit nicer for her no loneliness in croatia for her. But, yeah, im excited. It should be a fun christmas because of it, so. Hey, travel show. We are currently at home quarantining and getting ready for christmas. Its been a crazy year but we managed to make it work. We are getting engaged and now spending christmas and new years together, so from the both of us, merry christmas. Well, thats all we have time for on this weeks programme butjoin us next time, when ades taking a look back at the year that was 2020. A disastrous year for anyone who loves to travel. But among all the gloom, some moments of inspiration that give us hope for the months to come. Groans. Laughs. I cant do it until then, you can find all of our recent adventures on the bbc iplayer. We are on social media, too, in all the usual places. But for now, from me Christa Larwood and the rest of the travel show team, take care and well see you in 2021. Hello there. The next couple of days, we are going to hold onto this north south divide with Northern Areas seeing the colder, drier, brighter weather with some sunshine, a few showers, wintry on the hills. Further south, it will continue to be fairly mild, but rather cloudy and wet thanks to low pressure nearby. This is the pressure chart as we head on into tuesday. We still have this weather front straddling southern areas, further north, though, we have got higher pressure. So, here, plenty of sunshine for northern ireland, scotland, much of northern england, midlands and into north wales. More cloud, though, across the south of the country, some spots of rain at times, and h