Jude and Geoff

We met in Sierra Leone where Geoff was working for a British charity; WaterAid, and I was working for Save the Children Fund UK, in war torn Liberia.
We lived together in Sierra Leone for 2 1/2 years before leaving, due to civil unrest as the war in Liberia spilled over into Sierra Leone.


We then moved to live and work in the Republic of Georgia for two years with Oxfam.
During that time we had Sasha, and moved on to North Korea for a 6 month contract – INTERESTING place!!!
From there we lived in Turkmenistan for two years, and then Krgyzstan for 1 year. We had our second daughter; Zelina. We've also spent time living in London, and Northern Ireland where Geoff's family live.

Living in Little River has been such a relief really.
After all the travelling around, I just so like being in one place, and it's such a beautiful, peaceful place. Both Geoff and I have joined the local Fire Brigade, and I also volunteer for St John Ambulance as well. It's helped us to settle in to this community.


We decided to run a Bed & Breakfast as a way to keep in contact with overseas visitors and different cultures etc. We always had people staying with us anyway, I just love making them cosy and making a fuss over them! Little River suits us as it's not too far off the beaten track, but rural enough to enjoy a small community and bring our children up in secure setting.

Running our B&B has been a blast! We bought and renovated the cottage next door, so it's easy to keep tidy, not like my house! We have had lots of guests, and enojyed meeting people and hearing their stories.

 
The most exciting thing lately, is the Emergency Cadets Services we have helped start here. It's a first for the NZ Fire Service. We have 22+ regulars which meet every Friday evening aged between 10-16. They just love it and the proof is in the pudding as we've been running for since March this year! Our focus is on fire, first aid, civil defence, and we're going to link up with the Department of Conservation as well. We have heaps of things we want to expand into like camping, cooking etc etc. It's all so exciting!!!!