love where you go: Northern light

Christmas and Hogmanay in the Spey Valley usually involves a cocktail of family and friends shaken up with an ever-changing mix of snow, rain and gale-force winds. This year has been no different and our traditional Christmas day walk was taken through driving rain with a rather exposed picnic of smoked salmon and oatcakes washed down with bubbly chilled naturally in the breeze.

When the rain begins to get us down there is the option of heading up to the Moray Coast, where the sun always seems to shine. And one of the most fabulous places to stroll is the beach at Lossiemouth, the ‘jewel of the Moray Firth’. Once a bustling fishing port, Lossie’s West beach is about four miles long, backed by sand dunes that were originally created by using old railway carriages to protect the town from heavy seas. I have an uncle in nearby Elgin and a clutch of cousins living round about. So it was with Uncle Robin and cousins Susan and Penny – with kids Lara and Louie and their Scotty dog – that I took in the Lossie sands last Sunday, and the light fantastic…