Jo Herrings Adventures

Inspired by a twitter hash tag I wanted to add my thoughts on why you should love New Zealand. By the time you get to my blog you will have seen some of the obvious delights of the Land of the Long White Cloud.There is food, wine, beer, landscapes abound and more sheep than people and increasingly more stinky polluting cows. For the past 5 years I have lived some metres from where Captain Cook set off for his voyage from London to find the collection of islands in the South Pacific. From this vantage point I have been able to see the good and bad sides of my motherland. I can't do a top 10 or even a highlight tour but to express the love I have for my country of birth seeps from my pores and suffixes my sentences. Instead I would like to make some observations I have made of my people and my nation over these years looking from the outside in. The People New Zealanders have open faces. We smile at people with our eyes which is something I have never really seen in other cu...

rDear Dad, Today has been the single best use of this day in the past 9 years. And I hope my story makes you proud of your little girl. Today at 12 noon being 1am on the 7th of March in NZ I set off on a half marathon around the Silverstone F1 track in England. I clearly had DAD printed on my left hand, my nails painted red and black and a capital A on my right hand. Who would have thought I'd be in Cantab colours! This was all the inspiration I needed to get around the track. I set off at a strong pace making the first 2 miles in 18.45. I was supposed to be running a 10 minute mile pace but like most long runs I needed the loo and that spurs me on. I stopped for the loo at 2.5 miles and this put me off entirely as the break must have been 4+ minutes. Alas I took the inclines, hairpin turns and celebrity participants in my stride. At 9 miles I felt strong as I ran down a gravel hill towards the last stretch to reach  the final lap on the track. I spotted my good friends Holly...

As I stepped onto the DLR on Wednesday morning, I realised as a Londoner, its not the Earth and its mighty power that gives us city dwellers fear but those around us. As the days now turn into weeks from the devestating earthquake in my native New Zealand I have become conscious of the things around me that could enganger me yet again. Its the fact I live on the fourth floor and if there was a fire what would I do. I live next to a canal, if it flooded what provisions would I have and how could I provide for my neighbours in the floors below me. I have experienced an earthquake in London but it felt more like a truck driving past than the quakes I felt in my childhood living in Southland, so this is not something I have ever actively concerned myself with. But its the population that does provide the biggest risk to our daily lives. Its the man carrying a Fitness First bag on the tube with his bomb, the pack of young Asian boys who linger by my church yard (smoking fresh ganga) who a...