Jo Herrings Adventures

There is something magical about the way music can transport you back in time, make you feel like your 10,20 (or more if applicable) years younger, how it reminds you of a smell, a taste, a love, a place and oh, the people. The warmth of that feeling can hold you longer than the last note. And then of course the bitter reality that  music can conjure also. That stomach wrenching reminder of a lost one, a moment in time when life was not so colourful and the dark cloud of sadness that the words, tune or tone harks from. And on the opening chords you want to pull the plug, run out of the room for fear that the memory will take you back to a time of endurance. Mine vary from songs that they played at a mid-year Christmas breakfast  where our entire school listened to the radio in a church hall one cold winter school day(....why this memory sticks I'm not sure!), to the jubilant music at the Rugby World Cup Final in Auckland, the Meatloaf album that was stuck in our car tape pl...

This blog is almost solely about my love of my friend Haps book and how it has made me feel a little more normal than I did last week. If you haven't heard of my dear friend Hap let me introduce him to you....Mark Cameron aka Hap was a hung over dreadlocked student when I met him in my hall of residence in my first year at University and over the coming 3 years we would work together on almost every group assignment I had in my Marketing major, usually with a girl nicknamed Dogs making for a cherished bond in my life. In my last year of university Hap called around to my flat having graduated the year before to have a cuppa on my balcony overlooking the city of Dunedin. He told me of his mission to live and work on all the continents before he was 30. At 21 that seemed a fair plan, so the next day he headed off to Korea to get the ball rolling. Over subsequent years Hap made his way around the world working and backpacking and falling out of trees - see Hap and I were part of th...

As I recovered from the All Black placing in the Final my mind turned to other pressing matters. Shortly before the weekend of the Semi Final the people of the Bay of Plenty were devastated to discover a container ship (The Rena) had crashed into a small reef in the harbour. It was said to be like hitting a needle in a hay stack and bought up many questions about the piloting of vessels into NZ harbours. Over the subsequent days the wild winds thrashed The Rena making it impossible to recover the boat in one piece. It was leaking oil and some of the containers were propelled off into the bay leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. I decided to join my good friend Nikki's family in The Bay to offer my beach cleaning skills. I had had very sad news from the London camp early in the week also. My friend René's  best friend from school days had taken his own life. I had enjoyed some of my best London moments with Tom and his girlfriend Laura including jiving to Calvi...