OK, Islay has nothing to do with Ireland, but it is only twenty five miles off our coast, and the scenery and culture would be familiar to anyone who lives here in Ireland.  This story was originally published way back in 2008 in Minnesota Motorcycle Monthly, a great magazine in its time.  I thought this was sufficiently far removed from the current Covid crisis to give us all a small reminder of better times. Enjoy. __________ My home in Northern Ireland provides scope for many good scenic runs on a bike.  One familiar and rightly popular local run follows the coast north through County Antrim from the narrow confines of the Irish Sea to the open Atlantic.  The two waters meet off Ballycastle, a harbour sheltered by the rugged cliffs of Rathlin Island 3 miles offshore.  Look west from here on a good day, and the coast winds off toward Donegal and the open ocean, look north and off Scotland’s coast, the horizon is broken by Islay, the first of the Hebride...

I read this travel story years ago and decided to see if the site hosting it still existed.  Thankfully, it does, and has been extended with numerous other travel stories since the first 1999 instalment. Read the original travel story here:  https://the751.com/1999/06/25/the-751/ , a tale of just how far you could get with $751 and an old motorcycle 20 years ago.  It is a truly great read; definitely one for me to include in the sidebar. This should help pass a few hours of lockdown, and give inspiration for that far off time when we are free to move about in the world again. Enjoy.

Happy Easter everyone.  I thought it would be good to post this since it is both timely, and has absolutely nothing to do with the current crisis..  It comes from one of a series of books published by The Times newspaper (The Times History of the War).  These were published as WW1 was still in progress, so give a good contemporary account of events that were still then withing Britain.  There is a lot of detail here. Enjoy.