Carrickfergus Castle

I was a complete slacker yesterday. I was hauling myself through forty pages of revisions, trying like mad to get this next book ready to submit. And I forgot to blog. What was I thinking?

The winner of Out of the Night is . . .Sue Child! Congratulations, Sue! Send me your snail mail address, and I’ll get the book in the mail to you.

Because I got caught up in writing yesterday, I’m giving away two Harlequin Medical books today (and if you haven’t read a Medical, these are great fun. Think E.R. with a love story.) The books are: The Good Father by Maggie Kingsley and Mission: Mountain Rescue by Amy Andrews. Post a comment or subscribe to my newsletter, and they’re yours!

As one of the major 12th century castles in Ireland, I was really looking forward to visiting Carrickfergus Castle, located not far out of Belfast. There was an inherent problem, however. None of the roads were marked. Not a single sign. We had to rely on an internal compass, which I am sadly lacking. I could get lost in a traffic circle. Of course, I was appointed navigator. Go figure! And you’d think that a huge 12th century castle would be fairly obvious to find. Not so. But we eventually got there. Emphasis on eventually.

I had my first clue that Carrickfergus wasn’t exactly historically accurate when I saw a redcoat aiming at us with a cannon through one of the windows. I’ll admit, it killed the mood. I wanted a ruined, brooding fortress overlooking the sea. I got the equivalent of Disneyland.

To give you an example, when viewing the garderobe, we got a view of King John. Yep, that’s right. King John…on the john. My husband thought this was hysterical. And I’ll admit, it is a little. Okay, yes, it is funny. But all throughout the castle were plaster, life-size models of soldiers through the eras. It was meant to be kid-friendly, but it was a bit creepy. Like clowns, which I also find vaguely disturbing.

The tapestries were dated 1993 on the corner, and kid-sized plastic chess pieces decorated the Great Hall. I think I went into this castle with the wrong impressions. I was hoping for history. I didn’t get that. You had to really dig past the cartoony aspect to find the true nature of the castle. But I did find one interesting object on display. This was a salt cellar. Now how much fun would it be to pass that salt? It’s funny how we take salt and spices for granted now, and back in medieval times, it was truly a mark of wealth.

Coming Soon: Prison Break for Sheep. You’ve seen the tv show. But you’ve never seen sheep like this. (cue the Mission Impossible Theme Song)