The Blackmore Vale’s next publication day is Friday – are you subscribed? https://bit.ly/BValeSubscribe

Our next edition is a huge, uplifting and beautiful one, crammed full of local issues & news, latest official info, useful and thought-provoking items (and puzzles!) for a morning coffee read.

And one lucky subscriber will receive a £50 voucher for their choice of groceries store!

All active subscribers on the 3rd of December will go into a hat, and one randomly drawn lucky person will be announced in the December issue, winning a groceries voucher for their store of choice. It’s not for us to tell you where to shop, so you can choose Dikes in Stalbridge, The Book & Bucket Cheese Company or maybe you’ll simply choose ASDA. Just tell us, and we’ll arrange the voucher for you!

Click the subscribe button, and make sure you’re on the list!

Ah. So here we are, blinking sadly and despondently into another month of our familiar friend The Lockdown.

And yet, this is not like the Spring – this has not rushed upon us unprepared (I think we all saw it coming with the that slow inexorable march of inevitability). We know this beast. And we can do it again.

So – here’s where we are; we’re exactly where you always find us!

Nothing changes for us – the magic of a digital magazine is that you never leave your home, and we come to you.

Our next issue comes out on Friday – if you’re not already subscribed, you can do so here. I can guarantee it will be a huge issue of uplifting, beautiful, useful and thought-provoking items for a morning coffee read.
But, aside from bringing your monthly local interest into your home, we want and need to do more.

So we’re putting together a Lockdown Supplement – entirely free to all local businesses, a full magazine with listings of as many local businesses and community resources as we can who will still be operating throughout lockdown in whatever form they can manage.
We all need to support them, now more than ever before – they’ve taken a hit once, but managing to get through this twice is going to hugely impact all small local businesses; for many, this time of year is what provides the bulk of their annual income. And this bloody virus is stealing that away.

Whether it’s a pub switching to takeaways, a butcher offering local home deliveries, or a book shop allowing click and collect – they need us now. You may not be leaving your home, but you can still show them your support.
So we implore all of our readers not to rely on the ease of the Amazon giant in their phone, but to see who locally could help you instead. Food, wine, gin, gifts, puzzles, books… in the Spring I even purchased locally a new stand mixer when my ancient one decided that weekly lockdown pizza night was one giant dough mix too many.
So many things are available locally, provided with love by your neighbours, by the people you walk past in the street every day, who are desperately struggling to feed their families this winter without your custom.

If you run a business or work in a business (or simply know someone who does) that intends to maintain some sort of operating after Thursday, you can give us the details of your business here – it’s a simple form. Entirely free of course – this is not a money-making exercise; it’s just us doing our small part to help out where we can.

Also – our Facebook community group is open to everyone; feel free to post comments, questions and praise for anyone in the local area, and do use it as a resource for your own business news, too.