British pensioner, Louise Sydes, has decided to emigrate to New Zealand at the age of 102 because her care home in Kent is being demolished.
The the centenarian grandmother is moving 11,000 miles from Hawkhurst in Kent to Auckland, after Kent County Council announced they would be closing her care home. She is the last remaining resident at Bowles Lodge before it closes later this month.
The council offered to re-house Sydes but she has opted to move to Auckland, where she will live with her daughter. It is closing Bowles Lodge in Hawkhurst to save £2m a year.
Sydes herself seems unfazed by the upheaval of moving: "I will not miss the weather here but I will miss my friends, and Midsomer Murders".
She last visited New Zealand shortly after celebrating her 100th birthday.
Sydes was born in 1908 and has lived through both world wars. She met her husband on a boat back to England from the US at the outbreak of World War Two.
Her daughter, Sue Pearson, is thrilled that her mother is moving over permanently: “Usually family members are only allowed to come for six months, but we wrote to the government who granted us permission for her to live with us.”