I wandered past the Community Orchard with a visitor last week. The trees looked so established and we admired the ripening fruit. Hopefully the sun will shine on Big Apple Day on 23rd September.

It doesn’t seem so long ago that we were planting the orchard assisted by PWC consultants on their ‘help the community’ afternoon. Back then Scott and Callum needed help digging holes. Now, like the trees, they are well over 6’ and capable of wielding their own spades alongside constructing their unintelligible algorithms. Lovely though it is having them back for the Uni holidays I’ve not quite re-adapted to the mountainous food supplies required to keep them going – surely there were two packets of cheese in the fridge yesterday? Weren’t there? And we haven’t had cheese for a meal? So where could it have gone? I’m currently baking (by which I mean the bread machine) a loaf of bread every day and that also seems to mysteriously disappear. Any ideas?

You’ll notice on the front page that we are trying a new method of delivering The Bridge – seeing if we can find enough volunteers to take delivery of a small bundle of Bridge’s (e.g., maybe 12- 20) and then deliver these to the households close to you. The idea is that it might help build our sense of local community as well as ensure the lesser-known doors, known only to our experienced posties and neighbours, get their copy. If you can help, please e-mail Beth & Mel on deliveries@dunkeldandbirnamnews.co.uk letting them know which group of houses you would be prepared to deliver to. We’ll trial the system until Christmas backed up by house-to-house deliveries where we can’t find a volunteer and then review how it’s going.

Finally, a big shout out to all our amazing shopkeepers who manage to keep Dunkeld a thriving high street. All too often I drive through a Scottish town and think ‘where is everybody?’ and ‘why are all the shops closed?’ Dunkeld by contrast is thronging with people out and about enjoying everything our community has to offer from the beautiful scenery to its fantastic selection of shops, cafes, and restaurants. A huge well done and thank you to everyone who makes this happen day after day. Getting my e-bike has been an additional boost because I don’t even have to worry about where to park when I need to go to the shops for the daily supply of cheese.

Sally Robertson