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Sweet (?) Smell of Spring

Ah, spring. The time when bulbs are sprouting, young love is blooming, and the air is filled with the sweet perfume of...exhaust.

My husband is bringing the Harley home from its maintenance checkup this afternoon, and I can’t WAIT to get out and get some bugs in my teeth! Okay, not so much the bugs. I usually wear a bandanna over my lower face to keep my sensitive skin from turning beet red from windburn.

There’s something very Zen about being the Hot Babe On The Back. Um, okay. Just the Babe On The Back. All right, all right! Just On The Back!

We have a cruiser-type bike, which means the rear seat is cushy and wraps around my hips and lower back, so it’s easy to relax without fear of falling off. The only thing to worry about is smacking my helmeted head against the back of DH’s if he hits the brakes without warning. Yep, it’s happened.

The steady roar of the engine (okay, a hum – I wear ear plugs), the scenery rolling by, the sun warming my winter-cold carcass, classic rock on the radio. It takes a few minutes, but soon I feel myself draw a nice, deep breath as if I’m easing into meditation.

It’s amazing how many knotted-plot solutions come to me when I’m on the bike. Invariably I return refreshed and eager to get back to the keyboard.

I’m only one of many authors who’ve found a way to wrap a story around the shiny chrome of a motorcycle—and its bad-boy rider. Wildish Things combines two things I love dearly—Ireland and a Harley. Topped with a bad boy with a heart of gold, the story pretty much wrote itself.

Now you’ll have to excuse me. I have a sexy man in black leather calling my name. Happy spring!

(cross-posted on the Beyond the Veil blog)

Celtophile Monday

5000 Year Old Westray Wife Tours Scotland
A Neolithic carving found in the Orkney Islands last year is to go on tour around Scotland. The 5,000-year-old figurine, known as the Westray Wife, was discovered in the Links of Noltland on the Orkney island of Westray and is the only Neolithic carving of a human form found in Scotland. Measuring just 41mm by 31mm and made of sandstone, the Venus figure will go on tour around Scotland before returning to Orkney for the summer. Source: Culture24.org.uk

Scotland During World War II
What was life like during the second world war in Scotland at home, at school and on the street? Click here for student and teacher resources.

Ginger Hair Due To Bad Scottish Weather?
Scotland’s notoriously bad weather appears to be behind why more of the country’s population appeared to be blessed with ginger hair, new research has claimed. Read more

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Celtophile Monday

Ran across this nice page of Scottish lighthouses. This is Bell Rock, one of many designed and built by the Stevenson family. Author Robert Louis Stevenson belonged to this family. This is a good book about them: The Lighthouse Stevensons.







Also Irish lighthouses.This one is Hook Head, which my husband and I visited a few years ago on rare, clear October day. Some sort of beacon has existed on this spot since about 450 A.D., making it one of the oldest (if not the oldest) lighthouse sites in the world!

Related site: Commissioners of Irish Lights





And here we have beacons in Wales. This one is Porthcawl.











Cornwall, of course, has its share! This one is Tater Du, near Penzance on the south Cornwall coast.