A New Life In The Sun: Sussex couple leave the county behind to move to Spain

Lindsay and Craig Foreman’s move was followed on the Channel 4 show ‘A New Life in the Sun’, which sees UK residents moving across Europe to start new lives and businesses while navigating both Covid and Brexit.

Lindsay said: “Originally it was to give us a Brexit escape route and as a pension and retirement plan, but when Covid hit it gave us the opportunity to move out full time and really take advantage of the cheaper cost of living, the wonderful weather, lifestyle and more relaxed pace of life. We still manage to work and homeschool but against a holiday backdrop and relatively stress free living.”

The couple purchased a three-bedroom villa in Spain's Andalusia region with the view of renovating it to rent out as a high-end property.

Lindsay said: “We knew it was the one we were going to buy before we even walked in the door.

“The scenery, location and tranquility was breathtaking, and because Craig is a professional carpenter and builder we knew we could fix almost everything else - but couldn’t beat the incredible mountain views.”

There was a lot of work to be undertaken in the property and it took more time and money than they thought due to Covid and lockdowns.

Top of their list was getting the electrics and water, which took months.

She said: “We then need to do all the things you can’t see but make the big difference, like insulating all the walls, they do not build their houses for the winter, and underfloor heating.”

The plan was to rent out the property so that Craig and Lindsay could travel but lockdown made travel impossible and rental difficult.

“It was always intended as another property in our portfolio of five buy to lets (two in Forest Row, two in Kent and one in Berkshire) so that was always the plan and for us to travel to locations with lower costs of living such as Africa, South America, India etc while it was rented out,” Lindsay said.

“Lockdown made travel impossible and rental difficult and spending as much time here as we have we are more reluctant to leave than before and will likely spend more time here than we had originally intended.”

The couple now live in Spain.

She said: “It was a fascinating process getting an insight into the behind the scenes filming and production. It was both motivating in the knowledge we would have an audience monitoring our progress and slightly scary knowing all our mistakes would be caught on camera for all to see.

“If anyone has a dream of living abroad, go for it. Life is short and we haven’t regretted a single moment of the move, we have to pinch ourselves that this is now our life. As beautiful and wonderful as Forest Row was, the British pace of life and weather can sometimes get in the way of living a life that truly makes you bounce out of bed in the mornings to another beautiful day.”

A New Life in the Sun is at every weekday at 4pm on Channel 4, or catch up on the whole series on My4

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