A very long time ago my father, a British tax attorney was trying to figure out a way to reduce his tax burden so he decided to become a farmer.
He bought a few thousand acres of bog on the shores of Loch Broom at the end of a very long arduous single track road from Inverness to the small fishing village of Ullapool. With the money he earned advising celebrities and businesspeople how to manage their taxes he built a hotel, planted forests of pine trees on the barren hillsides and developed a sheep farm down by the salt water inlet called Loch Broom and in his way saw a place of beauty long before Instagram put the north of Scotland on the tourist map. 
His daughter my younger sister continued the work and has three children of her own who are prepared to continue the dynasty all of which is remarkable enough. What is unusual for me is how much I like being here in this miserable cold wet foggy climate. In a life filled with places visited all I have of Ullapool is happy memories. My father the lawyer became human here when we drove up for a few days, me to explore the rocky tidal shoreline on my school holidays and he to sort some new tangled business problem on the farm, in the forests or at the hotel. The view from the cottage where I’m staying, Loch Broom towards Ullapool: 
Lucy came by after lunch and we took her sons’ dogs for a walk and talked as we went. She is much younger than me filled with wisdom beyond her, or my, years. 
Her dogs, Ruby and Sionnach are wild terriers ready to chase deer or sheep across the hills and they are as old as Rusty, so they have to be held firmly to their leashes. For someone who ambles with Rusty, that level of vigilance makes me nervous; let the dog go accidentally and wreak havoc. 
We sat around the dinner table my first night here and talked and drank wine and told stories and I didn’t want it to end. And then I thought to myself I was last here shortly before my motorcycle accident eight years ago, far too long ago, realizing time has slipped through my fingers. We had planned to visit Ireland together, a trip scotched by Covid, and then Layne and I retired and went for a drive and here we are these many years later. 
I picked up my new passport, the tool that offers extra possibilities to me the traveler. I am the wanderer who knows I will miss Lucy and her stories when I fly back to Paramaribo next week, and she gets back to real life managing many things. Ullapool is the wettest place in Great Britain, the climate is cold and windy with Atlantic storms blowing in from frigid regions but it is fascinating and filled with colorful people, as desirable a destination to Britons as Key West is in the US. Tourism is flourishing as much as fishing used to in this village and my sister is a pillar of her community, a life well lived apparently. Around here being “Lucy’s brother” puts me on the map, makes me less of an unknown quantity on the street, where everyone knows everyone who isn’t a tourist. 
We stopped off at the Royal Bank of Scotland where Lucy introduced me to the teller as you do in small towns apparently. While she talked to the manager I wandered outside with my camera.
A man with two small daughters walked by and one of them asked me, with all the seriousness of a four year old who I was, this bearded stranger. “Lucy’s brother,” I said equally gravely. Lucy of Leckmelm? the father asked and I was identified.
Lucy got a call as we walked and it was the meter reader who was trying to find the electricity meter at her farm. A long discussion ensued as she explained how to find it in a shed. She warned him the floorboards are pretty rotten and to stay safe he needed to walk on the stone parts of the floor or he might fall through. There was a pause as he digested the information and the discussion went on for a bit. Lucy sighed as she hung up. “Ever since they got rid of Munro Sparky,” she said sounding nostalgic, “no one knows how to find the meters anymore.”
My father loved Rolls Royces which he as a self made man viewed as a symbol of success. He never bought them new, but even used they represented to his patriotic mind the pinnacle of British engineering. Sometimes even they let him down. I recall he bought one that had body rust masked by newspaper lacquered over the holes but nothing phased him. Lucy and I were talking about how he used to manage the farm on his visits in the Rolls Royce driving farm tracks and sparing neither himself nor the car. It had wheels and an engine therefore it was designed to transport him.
On one memorable occasion I had forgotten about Lucy reminded me of the time he hitched a trailer to the car, probably the first time ever a Rolls Royce became a utility vehicle, and drove some animals to market in style until the rear axle gave up the struggle and disassembled itself from the rest of the splendid car in front of all the already astonished farmers. Nothing perturbed him, a true eccentric, he just muddled on. Yet in court he was a brilliant piercing merciless advocate for his clients. And he loved this place.
Ullapool seems to be a magnet for colorful characters and in that it reminds me of Key West before mainstream America got ahold of it so there has been plenty of laughter at the dinner table as my family reminisces.
The meter reader called back for more directions which conversation caused me to crack up again as Lucy went through the precise directions to the overwhelmed employee on the phone.
The austere chapel is home to a collection of historic photos at the moment and I could have spent all my time looking at the faces from far in the past staring into the camera but I had to go and try on a top hat for Saturdays event.
The first baronet of Braemore was a civil engineer of some note building bridges hiring locals as the obituary pointed out and apparently making life better for those around him. It sounds too good to be true but that perhaps is just because of these times we live in. I like to think making life better for those around you could become fashionable one day.
When I came down stairs Tuesday morning there were some visitors outside whom I startled at their breakfast. 
They ran when I appeared. They were right to run as we had had venison for dinner the night before, shot last July by Lucy's eldest. Solais explained to me why I’ve never liked venison when he told me the meat tastes terrible if shot at the wrong season, when the animal is malnourished and stressed it has no fat, it’s tough and the meat tastes gamey. The deer we ate was perfect, like tender beef and I was astonished. I keep learning stuff. 
They follow the beat of their own drummer in the Highlands, and for me looking in from the outside I feel fortunate to get this small window into a life made rich by joie de vivre.
