Coming here has changed our outlook forever

HOWARD ABERNETHY, 46, owns two businesses — one selling champagne (finestfizz.biz) and another providing online wine tastings (domainedivine.co.uk) with wine delivered in test tubes. He lives in wandsworth, Southwest London, with wife randi, 45, who works in financial services. Howard says: Working from home in Barbados is one of those ‘pinch me’ moments that rarely happens in life.

Like most people, until the pandemic we were very tied to the structure and limitations of office life. We never took more than a couple of weeks off work at a time for a holiday, either.

if someone had told us a year ago that we’d be living in Barbados we wouldn’t have believed it. Yet, here we are!

Covid-19 changed everything. i took my business online, we both worked from home and, when i saw an advert on the internet for the Welcome Stamp visa, i realised we could work from anywhere.

We’re lucky to live in a lovely area of London with a terrific sense of community, which was hard to leave behind, but we knew we may never get an opportunity such as this again.

We’d never been to Barbados, either, but had heard great things. As we don’t have children, it was an easy decision.

now, my ‘office’ is the tropical garden of the three-bedroom home we’ve rented for a year on the north-west coast of the island, a five minute walk from the beach.

i work against a backdrop of lush palms, bright pink bougainvillea, and a mango tree where monkeys congregate every morning to feast on the fruit.

Another tree is home to an enormous flock of colourful parakeets who get very noisy as the sun goes down at teatime.

our work hasn’t suffered. Business is booming and i’m doing at least one online wine tasting every day. Meanwhile, randi works indoors as she needs to use multiple screens.

After applying for the visa, it was relatively straightforward getting organised. We rented out our four-bed terraced house, arranged for my brother to look after our dog, Chewie, and arrived in Barbados in early october.

There followed three blissful months without restrictions, bar wearing masks and social distancing. We quickly realised how much we’d missed face to face interaction — a casual chat on the beach or at the market, where we buy freshly caught fish and local vegetables, has such a positive impact on our wellbeing.

Even though Barbados is currently in a three-week lockdown with strict rules, we can swim in the sea at sunrise and eat all our meals outdoors beneath a blue sky.

This experience has already changed our outlook and approach to working life for ever. Who knows where we might choose to work from next!