To be with family

Upping sticks and moving to the other side of the world is stressful at the best of times, but doing it at the height of a pandemic certainly adds to the challenge.

For Kiwis Jude Osborne and Matt D’Herville, coming home after 19 years living on the outskirts of London is a blessing they’re grateful for every day. It’s been an adventure that’s required adjustment, not least for their British-born 10-year-old son Reuben, who even at the age of three was required to wear a shirt, tie, and formal shoes at school.

As the family emerged from Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) at the end of New Zealand’s winter to an uncertain future in their homeland, the friends they’d left behind in the UK were about to see a surge in Covid-19 cases worse than the first round.

Prior to their departure, farewell hugs with those they were leaving behind in Ruislip had been out of the question. With social distancing still very much part of everyday life, Jude and the family had barely left their two-bedroom flat for five months.

“It was like the country we lived in got cancelled,” says graphic designer and art director Jude, who worked for Publicis, one of the world’s largest communications groups. “We’d had good lives, a good network of friends, and the city was a 15-minute train ride away.

Matt had a great job carrying out technical and audio-visual elements of large corporate and live events all over Europe, my work was going really well, and Reuben had good friends and was settled at school. But the timing was right to come home. We’ve got family here and felt strongly it was time to embrace that. We’d always intended to bring Reuben here for some of his childhood because there are more opportunities for children, and a better quality of education.”

The couple had started planning to return to New Zealand a couple of years ago, until a sale on their house fell through. Fortunately, just as news of Covid-19 was developing, a friend’s mother approached them because she wanted to move nearer her grandchildren. Despite various restrictions and a lockdown, the sale went through.

Packing the 40-foot container was emotional, and a complication with the travel plans of the family’s beloved cat meant Jude’s departure was delayed, leaving Matt and Reuben to sit out MIQ in August without her. They’d already travelled on to Matt’s childhood home in Nelson – the city they’d dreamed of settling in – when Jude finally arrived in September.

“I felt very grateful to be allowed to come home and was incredibly impressed with the managed quarantine,” she says.

Reunited, the family enjoyed the freedoms their new lives afforded through the Antipodean summer, with lots of outdoor time. They watched on in horror, though, as their friends back in the UK went into even tighter lockdown post-Christmas.

Matt secured work as a handyman and is now training with a local electrical company, and to Jude’s delight, a design job came up in Nelson with cycle company Tineli.

“Coming home has more than met our expectations, but missing friends has been the hardest part of the move,” Jude says. Reuben, who started school soon after their arrival in Nelson, has still been able to catch up with buddies in the UK via Minecraft and Skype, and Jude can still be a regular at the Skype meetings with her Ruislip sewing group, time differences allowing.

All keen Tae Kwon Do practitioners – Jude is a black belt and Reuben isn’t far off – they’ve joined the local club, and that, combined with relatives, has given them a solid foundation. “Family have been so supportive and helpful here,” Jude says. “Matt’s parents have done a lot to help us get established and we are very grateful for their assistance and generosity. We’ve been fortunate, too, in that we’ve met some interesting people and we’re already proud to live here.”

An imminent move into their recently purchased 1960s four-bedroom weatherboard house will help further re-establish their Kiwi roots. Just around the corner from Matt’s parents, it’s also a stone’s throw from the beach, somewhere they’ve enjoyed heading for evening strolls. Their new place is a stark contrast to their compact UK maisonette.

“It’s been shockingly easy to adapt to life back here and we feel very blessed for that,” Jude says.

“It’s refreshing to come home and find that people still have that ‘can-do’ attitude and don’t overcomplicate things. Now I really appreciate that! I love being in a country with a more relaxed approach to life.

It will take us time to adjust because we were used to having to be on our toes. This is much nicer!”

Reported by Fiona Terry for our AA Directions Autumn 2021 issue