"Have I told you how blessed I am to be living in paradise?" Susie Hirschfield has had these words painted in a frieze around the palm-thatched palapa of her home in Puerto Escondido, a beach resort of some 40,000 on Mexico's Pacific. The Brit moved to Mexico in 2004 when she was made redundant at the age of 54. A decade later, her retirement dream remains intact. "I've no regrets," she says.
Ms Hirschfield is unusual as a Brit to have retired to Mexico - just 440 Brits draw the state pension in the country. But her decision to flee south in search of sun, sand and superior purchasing power is increasingly common. There are between 4.5m and 5.5m British nationals living abroad, according to most estimates, which equates to 7-9 per cent of the resident population. Most live in the English-speaking former colonies of Australia, the US, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand, but there are also roughly 411,000 in Spain and 173,000 in France (see graph 1).
