Beside the seaside

Sally Toms is getting ready for the summer.

It feels like spring has finally sprung here at Scotland Magazine, and what better time to plan your excursions for the coming year?

Reading the pages of this issue, you can tell we're already thinking about summer, and beach holidays in particular.

A good beach holiday can take many forms, but I'm particularly fond of those wonderful Victorian seaside resorts as described by Andrew Ross in his visit to Nairn. The kind with a pleasure pier, deck chairs, a bandstand that never gets used and a promenade perfect for strolling along eating chips from a newspaper cone. The kind of place where they still sell those sticks of rock that break your teeth, and you can lose all your money in those penny arcades that nowadays cost considerably more than a penny.

I've always felt you can tell the oldest resorts by the ferocity of the seagulls. It's almost as if they've been training over generations how to terrorise us perfectly: how to steal an ice cream from a toddler's grip at 40 miles an hour, or dive bomb pensioners in their deck chairs just for the thrill of it.

Crafty birds. They can be quite entertaining, though.

I remember a story from last year about a particularly cheeky seagull in Aberdeen named Sam. Not satisfied with the odd mouldy chip, this bird had turned to thievery to satisfy his appetite for junk food. He would lurk outside his local corner shop, wait until the shopkeeper had turned his back, waddle in and make off with a packet of cheese Doritos. I assure you it'...

To read the rest of this article you can do any of the following.

• By : Sally Toms
• In : Editor's View
• Issue : 38
• Page : 3
• Words : 650