donutt

Well peeps it's been a month here in Nz my family arrive next week but still having thoughts of I have just made the best or the most biggest mistake in our family's life yes I know it's only a month but I am worried the kids will not settle and what if toh can't get a job ect ect I am hoping it will get better 🙃 ps I miss central hesting😊😊😊

escapedtonz

You cannot foresee the future. You haven't got a crystal ball. You won't know if your kids will settle or if toh will get a job until you have all experienced it and tried so why stress about what may or may not happen ?
You are just making life harder for yourself which could potentially rub off on your family and frankly starting a new life anywhere doesn't need negativity in the mix.
Just get on with it, be positive in everything you are doing and be happy and I guarantee it'll get better.
We absolutely love it here. Best thing we ever did. My only regret is not doing it 10 years earlier!

Hazelnut

One thing to not underestimate is the effect of having gone from UK winter to NZ winter too. I'm still in the UK and the severely c*** non-summer we had last year followed by an awfully long winter has worn us down. Now it's summer it's helping both me and MrH feel more optimistic.

Can you manage a walk outside in natural light for half an hour or so a day? Perhaps explore some areas on foot ready for showing them to the family when they arrive?

Lisa Maree

It took me years to settle in the UK, do not underestimate the toll of immigrating even if its to an English speaking country that has historical ties.

Gradually the good days start to out weigh the crap days, its like when your babies learn to walk and go from 10% walking 90% crawling to 20/80 then 50/50 then 20/80 and then you can barely remember the days when they weren't tearing around the place... it takes time.

I always had to have fun things to look forward to in the early days, new places to visit highlighting the best of your new country will really help.

jmh

Try not to think in terms of right or wrong. You decided to have an adventure and you will learn a lot as a result. At the end, you may decide that NZ is what makes you happy, or you may discover an unrealised appreciation of where you came from. Either way, you will be a stronger person as a result of the life lessons learned.

Snap Shot

You are out of your normal routine, that is jarring.

You don't have your wife and child/ren with you right now, that is jarring.

I'm guessing you don't have your normal things around you right now, that is jarring.

If you have a new job to go to, the newness of that will be jarring.

You are trying to establish a new routine, that is jarring.

You're not driving your old car, that is jarring.

You may well be coming home to an empty house, certainly a house you don't really recognise and devoid of your wife and family - that is jarring.

You don't have your wife and family rabbiting on in your ear - that's (bliss ?) disconcerting.

You are living out of a suitcase - that's jarring. Basically, you've got pretty much all you could carry and came packed for a long holiday. Albeit you have your smart work clothes which turned out to be unnecessary in 'we're so cool' NZ. Where's my.........? Oh, that's right 12,000 miles away at, um, home.

Weekends seem odd without your nearest and dearest. It's winter here whereas it's early summer in Britain. We swapped early snowdrops of spring in Britain for turning leaves of Autumn in NZ on arrival.

When we were in Christchurch in March 2011 the question came to me, 'this is an improvement on Woking ?'

We were in a rented house in an earthquake zone. No contents insurance. No job. No income. We were living off savings. Rental car had to be returned to save costs. We were on foot. I was walking to my temporary job. My husband was getting job interviews but no job offers. We were going on the bus to collect our groceries each week and bringing them home in our back packs. Either that or we would put them in an abandoned supermarket trolley on our way home from the bus stop and then abandon the empty trolley behind a Portaloo in a neighbouring street. The earthquakes were happening fairly regularly.

No wonder my husband's job offer in Whanganui looked so attractive !

Give yourself time. At least a year to see how it all plays out.

OK, I'm not a big fan of living here, however, I do remember how new it all once was. Although you have come to NZ, 'clean' so to speak. You've come directly from Britain to NZ on the strength of an NZ job offer. The whole thing doesn't read like a badly written soap opera.

We had six weeks being technically homeless in the UK after selling our house and coming to NZ. (We stayed at my Dad's house for four of those six weeks, that ended badly, so our coping skills were already being undermined before we left the UK but we couldn't see it at the time. Lesson learned.) Then three uncomfortable weeks in Auckland in temporary accommodation whilst looking for work/dealing with family drama (you know how it goes). Nobody really understood the gravitas of what we were doing.

Then three and a half uncomfortable months in Christchurch.

Followed by moving to Whanganui. Such fun.