By Sadie Nine and Jodie HalfordBBC Essex
Belinda GrantFrom a windswept English coastal town to the mountains of Indonesia: how did an Essex woman swap her 9-5 for the life of a medicine woman in the jungles of Bali?
When Lynette Allen wants to join a Zoom call, it's not quite as easy as throwing on a work-appropriate top and some pyjama bottoms.
The wi-fi where she lives - in a remote jungle in the foothills of a Balinese mountain - isn't the greatest, so she travels two hours south to the nearest city for a stronger connection and "an excuse to get some flat whites".
Her wooden home, shared with husband Mark, 55, and 11-year-old daughter Livvie, is a 6m x 6m (20ft x 20ft) house on a banana plantation.
Lynette AllenWhen the family first arrived on the island, they "kept moving from nice villa with a pool, to nice villa with a pool" before deciding to settle down, buy land and build their home.
It's certainly different from Lynette's life 10 years ago, when she was commuting from her home in Dovercourt, Harwich, to her corporate job supporting women in business.
Then everything changed. She got divorced, met new husband Mark, had a baby and decided to upend her whole life.
At first the family moved to Spain, where "I learnt about all the things that I do now," Lynette, 50, recalls.
Wanagiri Hidden Hill Bali"From there, I was just really kind of called to Bali. I said to Mark, 'Can we go and live in Bali for a while?' and he said 'Yeah.' So we did the same again."
She now specialises in plant medicine using cacao, runs "sister circles" - where women meet to share, connect with each other and celebrate life - online and teaches others about "ritual and meditation and journaling".
She speaks "a fair amount of Indonesian" these days. "I get my point across. I could communicate with hand signals just about to fill in the gaps," she laughs.
Daughter Livvie is educated at home - something Lynette feels passionate about - while Mark is retired.
Wanagiri Hidden Hill BaliBut Bali is far from idyllic for all its inhabitants, something Lynette realised within a few months of her big move.
She was introduced by a mutual friend to a woman called Kim Farr who took Lynette to visit a safe house run by her charity Bali Street Mums, which provides shelter, food, health care and education to women and children in the Denpasar area.
Lynette was "blown away" by what she saw. "I walked into this safe house where they had around 75 children. Probably about 25 mothers… They've all been abused, they've all been rescued," she says.
"Livvie was seven or eight at the time. My head was banging because I'm thinking, 'There but for the grace of God', so to speak."
Lynette AllenBut the longer Lynette spent with the families, the more horrified she became. Some of the children were living in "absolute squalor" on top of a rubbish dump.
"They live in tin huts around the bottom of the dump; they're on top of it in bare feet, and they're looking for plastic and things that they can sell," Lynette recalls.
"What I saw was eye-opening."
Lynette AllenLynette found herself unable to stop thinking about the children's lives and their lack of safe housing, clean beds or ways to cool off in the oppressive Bali humidity.
"I've got to do something. I don't know what to do… but then I started to figure out how to work with them and I've been working with them four years now," Lynette says.
The charity tries to provide families in need with clothing, books, food - whatever is necessary to ensure the children are sent to school, rather than down to the city streets.
Lynette Allen"The children from the mountains, they tend to be from the poorest areas - the parents are used to begging on the streets when they were young," says Lynette.
"They kind of think it's OK to send their children down to the city to beg. But that leaves them very much open to being vulnerable.
"So what Kim does is try to reach the families and work out how can we keep the child at home rather than doing what the parents had to do when they were kids."
Vandi AnggaLynette is also an author - with the profits from her books going to Bali Street Mums.
"My latest book is paying for a weekend away for local teenage girls, and while they're there they're going to talk about 'What life would you like to have?'
"They're going to talk about their sexual health and contraception; not marrying too early, going to school."
Her new book brings together 50 women over the age of 50 to write a chapter each with "our most heartfelt advice that we've learned over our fifty years".
"It's a book full of advice from women from all kinds of backgrounds. We've got a lawyer, a monk, teachers, grandmothers, entrepreneurs.
"We've raised nearly £5,000 for Bali Street Mums, just from that book since August."
Lynette AllenNot many people embark on such a big life change as Lynette, so does she have any regrets about the move to Bali?
"No, I don't," she says. "I do wish I was closer to my family. My mum is in Essex, in Dovercourt. My brother is in Cambridge.
"But [I] measure everything, with where we are, the upbringing that we've got for Livvie, the books I'm able to write for the charity.
"And you can afford to help the Balinese community: £1, £2 or £5 goes so far."
Lynette says she will always value listening to her intuition and seeking out a different way of living.
"I thought, 'Hang on, let's start from scratch - what do I really want to do?'" she says.
"I'm hopeful that my daughter will grow up with that bigger sense, because she's seen us move our lives and move across the world."
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