Hawaii-Five-Oh!

I can't remember much about the original TV series Hawaii Five-0 apart from the music! And I don't mean gently strumming ukuleles to accompany hula dancing but the programmes theme tune. 

It was so iconic and something we had all grown up with we added it to our school band's repertoire (and frankly totally butchered it). I hasten to add that being the oboe player, which can be a beautifully evocative instrument in talented hands, realised quickly that music I wanted to play didn't match my skills nor my instrument. I still sport a rare oboe playing scar on my face, not from an ill-advised brush with a gangster but a tussle with a saxophonist over a music stand.  Who knew being in the band could be so dangerous!

M was the avid follower of Hawaii Five-0, I seem to recall a mild crush on Steve McGarrett and the bluest of skies and M's ever-favourite palm tress. I don't remember anything else but I know that the strong desire of hers to eventually visit Hawaii was borne from watching their weekly escapades in Honolulu and around those islands.    

Sadly M never achieved her wish to take that trip to Hawaii, and I would love to know what she thought when I got to live her dream instead. I was doubly fortunate, much to my extraordinary surprise I won a work incentive for a fabulous trip away and secondly it turned out to be in Hawaii. I then discovered a couple of things very quickly i) Hawaii is really long way away, pretty much from anywhere and ii) the week before the Hawaii trip I was in New York for work and the weeks after I had booked a fortnight in the Loire Valley on a photographic workshop. That meant I would be away for five weeks and as heavenly as that sounds it also sounded a bit of a logistical nightmare making a multitude of connections. And yes, a comedy of travelling errors ensued - extreme jet lag, misread timetables, errant Eurostar tickets, missed trains, domestic US flights (the total antithesis of travelling in style!), strikes in France meaning no fuel for trains and taxis and the most inappropriately packed suitcase ever.

But banishing all thoughts of the convoluted journey aside, the final leg of my travels was the island hopper over to Lana'i and the Manele Bay hotel. I quickly realised that my Hawaiian adventure was all I could have dreamt of. The impossibly blue skies, the sapphire sea, the wafting palm trees, the lush greenery and exotic flowers. What paradise for a budding photographer, thankfully I have packed several memory cards.