Purpose is medicine for a family habitually driven to do something!  Don’t misunderstand, while we are sure that the passive intake of tourism is therapeutic for us, change of pattern is also difficult. One of our goals in the UK was to visit the Isle of Bute in Scotland.  Sarah’s great, great Grandfather Peter Barr, owned a smokehouse and fishmonger shop in Rothesay that was, and is a successful venture. His son Duncan helped develop the Rothesay Golf Club’s course and was its professional. Our adventures on the journey north from London via the left side of the highway, although extremely stressful for the driver, involved no damage to the car.  We sought lodging at an Inn in a little town that appeared deserted. With the exception of one man on the sidewalk smoking and talking to his phone, we had to assume that in Scotland also, the inhabitants are mainly occupied with Netflix on a Sunday evening. Pulling the pub’s door for Sarah proved us completely wrong.  The place was loudly packed full of Scots, still in their church clothes, preparing for a new week.  We pushed in, contemplated how long we might have to wait just to ask the bar/innkeeper about a room, then returned to the car laughing at how we had just stepped out of the scene of a movie and discussing with the kids how we might be able to bring this bit of culture back to Plain.   After a very pleasant night at a B&B on the mainland, we caught a ferry to the Isle of Bute. We brought our hostess’ greetings to her brother in law who, it turns out, is one of the two employees of Ritchie’s.  Peter Barr opened his fish shop in 1888, operated it for 68 years, and sold it to the Ritchies in 1956. The store changed hands again last year and is now owned by Lord Bute.  Alistair, who was very hospitable, sold us some salmon and invited us to meet him at the smokehouse after lunch. The smoke house has remained unchanged over the 125 years that it has been in operation.  They burn the sawdust of recycled scotch whiskey barrels under racks of fish, and our lunch confirmed that the resulting product is delicious! Rothesay Golf Club, it seems, doesn’t see many visitors during winter.  There was, however, an older gentleman on the practice green who asked if he could help us.  He had read of Duncan Barr in a book and told us that he was playing a round in the morning and that someone might be around to help us if we came back then.  At 9:30 we returned to find a whole group of folks interested in meeting Duncan Barr’s great granddaughter.  They had held a meeting of the club membership the night before to discuss our visit and determined that they would like us to play a round courtesy of the club.  They had also dug into the storeroom and found old blueprints of the course revisions that had been done by Duncan Barr along with the history book of the club that was mentioned earlier.  The hospitality of the http://www.rothesaygolfclub.co.uk/ and our round of golf there was wonderful. The weather that day was one of the most beautiful during our entire stay in the UK!  One of the fellows also remembered seeing the gravestone of Sarah’s ancestors down in the church yard and was able to point us in the right direction to visit it and the home in which the Barrs had lived. So after two days honest toil and discovery of roots accomplished, we return to the life of leisure.  Westminster Abby, everyone?