We gave up our belongings and house to move

PIPPA MOSS, 30, is an actress and acting coach and lives near Southend-on-Sea, Essex, with her partner James, 31, a performance nutritionist. She says: JAMES and I were so desperate to seize the opportunity to move here that we gave up the bungalow we were renting from his mum and sold our furniture and my prized road bike. Now we don’t have a home to go back to — but we’re very relaxed about that as we’re having the time of our lives.

It all began one morning last autumn when James woke me to say he’d just spotted an advert online for the visa. ‘We could work in Barbados, what do you think?’ he asked.

After a long discussion, I reasoned that my usual acting work was slow due to the pandemic, and James’s work had gone online, so why not? We wanted to turn our experience of the pandemic into something positive.

Having applied for the visa, we told our families — who were supportive if a little sad — and booked return flights for around £800.

We rented a one-bed apartment on a farm on the Atlantic coast of the island for £800 a month and arrived on New Year’s Eve.

Now, instead of looking out at grey skies and an overgrown garden with two old sheds and a rusty barbecue, I work on our veranda with horses grazing beneath fruit trees.

One slight disadvantage is the early starts, we get up at 4am to keep to UK working hours.

Of course we miss our friends and family, but we wouldn’t be allowed to see them at the moment anyway. We plan to stay for the year, returning to the UK next Christmas if restrictions have been lifted. By then we’ll be eager to see my nephew and James’s niece.