The large, free car park should accommodate but be warned. Aberfoyle can make for a popular place for it's a fine-looking affair on Main Street and the River Forth, yes, of Firth of fame, occasionally visits here.

The kayakers no longer have to disembark at nearby Loch Ard, they've actually been seen paddling past the Post Office.

This is 'Rob Roy' MacGregor country and he used to have a cave next to the loch, yeah right. Liz MacGregor has a cake next to the Co-op™ and quite a few of them, cakes that is.

Unlike Rob, Liz might not really be real but she still manages to bang out some brilliant shortbread but more on that in a minute.

The Scottish Wool Centre, or whatever it is since the Edinburgh Woolie Mill™ went into administration, can sort you out on the shortbread and tartan shirt front.

There's a resident shepherd who puts on daily shows rounding up ducks with a dog. That's currently a local-sounding lady expressing very strong opinions on keeping Border Collies as pets and she looks to have replaced Ricardo. He was from Lake Como in Northern Italy...

'Vieni-vicino! Vieni-vicino!'...
'Va-via! Va-Via!'...
'Fermo! Fermo!'...
'Va! Va!'...
and they're back in the pen.

The centre even has a small 'zoo' behind the caff with some rare-breed sheep, goats and the most endearing of all the captive animals, the tiny horse.

He's inexplicably not shown but received an inevitable pat accompanied by an unavoidable grin.

There's something of a supernatural diversion over the river that can helpfully pass a couple of leisurely hours. Doon Hill shouldn't be too much of a worry, the ascent is just the half of it. It's also known locally as Fairy Knowe, which means a bit of a hump in a field and yes, fairies.

Back in the 1690s, the reverend Robert Kirk sharpened his quill and penned some inky nonsense on the nature of them and the 'conventions of their society'.

He had taken to walking up the hump every day but during one in May Kirk only went and collapsed, his carked corpse not found in the copse until later. Local legend says that he passed into the fairy realm and now lives in a Scots pine.

The story has slightly more to these new living arrangements involving his begging apparition being stood up on a resurrecting date and the fairy tale element is just about fathomable but the conventions of their society? Presumably that's the correct tiny knife and fork to use when in certain fairy circles?

Kiddies have a custom of hanging trinkets on the tree and hand-written wishes to be granted. The items can get a tad tatty over the months and it was all a little too  Wicker Man.

'No sir, it does NOT refresh me!' © Eh-Wah Woo-Wah.

Fairy Knowe can be got up and at by heading south past the graveyard, which is where the very same Robert Kirk now resides.

You could try and improvise a different route to return by but there's a river in the way and you'll end up looping back with just a carpet of bluebells for company.

Despite being right at the start of the Trossachs, there's evidence not everybody stops for long. Perhaps the problem is that by being right at the start of the Trossachs, why pause en-route to the Trossachs when you're very nearly there? Whatever the whyfors, Aberfoyle is in a constant state of change.

you-know-what wouldn't have helped when the Wool Centre almost went the way, filed under 'Closed until further notice' for a while. Liz MacGregor's may be a mainstay but the Forth Inn folded and there has been a rapid rotation of retailers in the adjoining block.

The purpose-built Co-op™ replaces a failed garden and homeware outlet leaving the former space over the road empty and it's difficult to imagine who will fill it.

So many words on a settlement of just a few hundred folk but this is an annual ritual and a fondness for the place means nobody wants to see things flopping. That aside, there are other reasons not to avoid Aberfoyle so let's namecheck some newcomers...

The Station Coffee Shop brings its home-roasted beans from Balmaha and next door you'll find Maggie's. Oh Maggie! What have you done?

Maggie's Aberfoyle Kitchen, actually, and she's only gone and ousted Liz as the queen of the shortbread. If you visit here immediately after SlyBob, they'll likely be out of stock with this pair's shopping bags brimming.

Everything else edible is made by Maggie in the cooking area behind and there's a batch of something bubbling that's both savoury and sweet at the same time. Bob is lingering at the giddy aroma while Sly does her stuff, lingering to the point of being quite creepy thinking about it now.

Pear chutney, as it happens, but it won't be ready today so see you in a year, it'll keep for that many weeks won't it?

Given all the changes, though, what chance the tourist information could be a tanning salon by then?