In our month abroad, Anne and I did Great Britain from bottom to top: from Chichester in the south to John O’Groats on the North Sea. And, coming back, we added a few hundred miles as we swung southwest, visited friends in Liverpool, then turned southeast and back to Chichester.

Now, don’t worry. Like you, I’m bored to dry sobs by other people’s travelogues. I smile, nod, make polite sounds. But I also want to run out of the room. So I won’t inflict all our adventures on you. But some good stories did come out of that month abroad, ones you’ll enjoy. I’ll share only those. I promise.

We did all that traveling almost exclusively by car, and you may wonder how I survived, sitting on the car’s wrong side and driving on the wrong side of the road. Well, I did just fine_by not driving at all. Our Chichester friends, Barbara and Michael Thrower, took us on the long excursion in their diesel Land Rover. I got to sit next to one or the other of them, pretending to navigate, while all the wheelwork was done for us. What good friends!

A first day’s drive got us to Morpeth, near the Scottish border. We stayed two days there with other good friend. Anne and I took the bus into Newcastle (to which, of course, one doesn’t take coals) so she could investigate the murder of one of her eight great-great grandfathers. In 1835, the poor man was beaten to death in a bank. But that story, friends, deserves a column of its own. Stay tuned.

When we got on the road again, another eight hours’ drive took us up to northernmost Scotland, near John O’Groats and the North Sea. A stark barren area, that. Some shrubs, but few trees, and a wind off the sea sometimes so severe that it has uprooted eight-pound cabbage heads and hurled them forty feet.

We saw lots of sheep on wind-swept hillsides, and the ruins of two-room stone cottages called crofts, abandoned by their owners in the 19th century.

If we followed accurately the directions provided by Anne’s cousin Gail, we actually found the ruins of the Geddes family croft, settling into tall grass just off the road and with the North Sea breaking not far behind it.

The real find, however, was in Wick, a city of 9,000 and the only municipality in the area. When Anne’s great-great-grandfather Geddes (not the murdered one) was a young man, he took himself to Wick. There he recreated himself as a herring curer, at a time when Wick was home base to a big fishing fleet. He did very well for himself, bought several properties in the city, and became famous as a temperance preacher.

Anne learned this and more in the archives upstairs in the Wick Library. We were greeted there by a pleasantly energetic archivist. I told her my name and said that my wife, who was researching her family, was named Geddes. The woman smiled broadly. "Why," she said, "my name is Geddes, too. Anne Geddes."

My bride’s eyes widened, "I’m also Anne Geddes," she said, "though my birth name was Margaret Anne." The woman laughed aloud. "And I’m a Margaret Anne Geddes, too!" Well, imagine how these two bonded, and how anxious the Scottish Margaret Anne was to help. She pulled out maps, deeds, wills_a wealth of information about great-great-grandad Malcolm Geddes, including his obituary and newspaper tributes to him. After a while I tiptoed away from the two of them and went on a pilgrimage of my own.

I’ve mentioned to you before that, among my few remaining vices (the rest having been snuffed, not by virtue, but age) is a yen for single malt scotch _in moderation, of course. It’s the taste that I love. I should say the tastes, for Scotland alone has hundreds of single-malt distilleries, each producing a product unique in flavor. And one of them, bless us, was located right in Wick. It was only a few blocks from the chapel where Anne’s ancestor had stormed against its product.

Feeling only a little guilty, I left the two Anne Geddeses poring over records and trekked towards pouring of another sort. Averting my eyes from old Malcolm’s chapel, I walked fast along the quayside, hoping to reach Old Pulteney Distillery in time for the day’s last tour.

Too late. When I walked into the lobby of the distillery, it was empty except for a smiling, ruddy-faced Scot behind the counter. I told him of my disappointment in missing the tour. "Well, now, just wait," he said. "I’ll lock the front door and take you �round myself."

That pleasant Scot turned out to be Malcolm Waring, manager of the whole operation; he showed me Old Pulteney’s production from barley mash to aging barrels to bottles, all the while talking of his satisfaction in making a fine product, and doing it very close to where he’d grown up.

After the tour and back in the lobby, I thanked Malcolm and asked for a last favor: Would he call a taxi to get me (now laden, of course, with a couple of bottles) back to the town center? Malcolm clicked his tongue.

"A taxi will take forever getting here," he said. "Let me turn off some lights, and I’ll drive you down." And this kind man did, dropping me in front of McKay’s Hotel, where I was to meet Anne. (High on the brick sidewall of McKay’s, one can still read a faded inscription: "TEMPERANCE HOUSE.")

While I awaited Anne, I went inside and ordered a small Old Pulteney. I hope my unspoken toast wasn’t flippant. It was to old Malcolm Geddes, a good man, if fierce in his principles; and to young Malcolm Waring, a man most kind to strangers. Surely old Malcolm would have admired that in him.

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek. Learn about his book at JimAtwell.com.