Diary Dates
Saturday 20th July – Strawberry Tea 3pm – 5pm. The return of an old favourite – a delicious afternoon tea, featuring Scottish Strawberries – and lots of them. It’s strawberries every which way – from strawberry sandwiches to strawberry cakes and tray bakes, bowls of strawberries and cream, strawberry meringues, chocolate dipped strawberries and much more. £7pp for a summery afternoon tea (school age children half price).
Tuesday 29th October Halloween PopUp at 11.00 in the Hall – tea, coffee and baking to celebrate the spookiest time of the year.
Sunday 10th November 10.50 at the War Memorial – Service of Remembrance. Tea and coffee served by the FVA in the Hall afterwards.
Saturday 14th December 16.00 – 18.00 – Mulled Wine and Mince Pies served in the Hall. A pre-Christmas get-together with friends ahead of the seasonal last-minute rush.
FVA AGM
Fearnan Village Association held its 2023/24 AGM on Saturday 22nd June. The FVA’s annual report and financial statement were presented to members and a change to the Articles of Association was agreed – the inclusion of terms of office for FVA Committee members.
Four new committee members were co-opted to the Committee last year, and these appointments were approved by the members present. After the meeting, the committee met to appoint the office bearers, and the new committee is now;
- Fiona Ballantyne – Chair
- Neil Ballantyne
- Karen Bennet – Treasurer
- Fran Donovan
- Judith Hughes – Membership Secretary
- Elaine Melrose
- Linda Milne
- Pat Stalker – Minute Secretary
Recent Events – Italian-Flavoured Pop Up and BYOB Cheese and Wine
In May, we held a well attended Pop-Up with an Italian flavour to the baking as change from the usual, typically more Scottish baking. This change appeared to go down well with those present and we were delighted to welcome around 40 or so locals to the event.
Among the goodies on offer were: biscotta, tiramisu cake, lemon and blueberry cake and orange olive oil cake.
In June we hosted a BYOB Cheese and Wine, as a direct result of ideas put in the Suggestions Boxes a few months ago. The BYOB format seemed to go down well and there was a fine array of cheese and savoury bites on offer – all in all a very sociable and enjoyable event.
Winter Warm Welcome Games Afternoon
Frances and Lesley would like to thank everyone who supported the Winter Warm Welcome Games Afternoons.
The raffles raised £130 in aid of the SCAA and they warmly thank you for your generosity.
Interest has been expressed in continuing with Table Tennis, Curling and Quoits throughout the Winter months, possibly on a Thursday morning.
Lesley and Frances would be happy to arrange this if there is sufficient interest so let them know if you like the concept and would like it to continue.
Thrift Shop
The McLean Hall, Fearnan has been allocated the Thrift Shop from the 14th-20th July. It is open from 10.00 – 4.00 daily.
If it’s possible, please drop items at the shop. Thanks for your donations so far and a big thank you to all of you who have already volunteered to help.
There will also be a tombola and Lesley (07891771708) will be happy to accept donations for that. There will also be a designated box in the hall kitchen for tombola contributions. We will also be selling plants and will have the usual Friday sale of baking.
Linda (07729300708) will take any of the above that you would like to donate and are unable to bring to the shop.
We hope it will be a great week. Your support is always appreciated.
Book Club
There are 2 book reviews this month, for May and June.
Linda writes:
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods was recently reviewed. It was a popular choice and an easy read. The Book Club evening, when this book was reviewed, was a lively, relaxed evening fuelled by Prosecco and orange flavoured chocolate buttons!
The Lost Bookshop
The thing about books,” she said “is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.”
In The Lost Bookshop, we have two timelines, and three main characters – Opaline, Martha and Henry. It moves between 1921 and present day as each character tells their story.
It contains mystery, love, magic and books, with well-drawn, true to life characters. The main characters were likeable, and it was easy to empathise with the stories of the impossible situations they found themselves in.
Our group often dislike books that jump in time, but it was felt that as the characters were intertwined, it was easy to go from one storyline to the other. There were parallels in the bad experiences in Opaline and Martha’s lives and their shared love of books. The author explored these tough experiences in detail.
Henry was on a quest to find a missing manuscript but also found love. Madam Bowden, we decided, was Martha’s guardian angel and a custodian of the lost bookshop, but did she exist and what happened to Shane? We felt these questions should be answered by us as readers. At times the reader had to suspend disbelief and some of the group were less comfortable with the fantasy aspects of the narrative.
We particularly enjoyed and appreciated the descriptions of the characters and settings. The Lost Bookshop itself was described in detail, eg. wood from a bookshop in Italy, as were the tattoos on Martha.
It was generally felt that the ending was well written and brought together all the missing links that bound the characters, creating a feel-good factor.
Lesley writes:
Our next read was “The Daughter of Time” by Jaqueline Tey.
The Daughter of Time is a 1951 detective novel by Josephine Tey, concerning a modern police officer’s investigation into the alleged crimes of King Richard III of England.
Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant is confined to bed in hospital. A friend brings in a portrait which appears to him to be of a gentle, kind and wise man. History knows him however, as the wicked uncle Richard III. Why is everyone so sure that he was a cruel murderer?
From his hospital bed, he conducts an investigation aided by friends and an American scholar.
The group were quite divided although they liked the idea of him solving this historical crime using the same deductive techniques as his day job and they felt they learned much about this period in history.
Main criticism and reason for a couple abandoning the book was finding themselves floundering in all the historical detail.
Some pondered whether a greater knowledge of the period would have made any difference to their enjoyment of the book and this led into a discussion as to who ‘took’ Geography v History at school and why.
Lighting up a cigarette and flowers on the ward were pointed out as examples of changed times in hospitals since 1951. Confusion reigned for a while in that he was lying flat on his back with a broken leg. Medical knowledge amongst members dismissed this treatment until one more observant reader pointed out that Grant had also chipped a bone in his back. Mystery solved!
Although Josephine Tey’s detective doubted the physical description of Richard III one of our group pointed out that time has moved on since the book was written and, with the discovery of Richard III’s skeleton in 2012 we now know that he was indeed scoliotic.
One for history fans perhaps rather than geographers!
Next month’s book is The Quaker by Liam McIlvanney – a serial killer stalks the streets of Glasgow and DI McCormack follows a trail of secrets to uncover the truth…
Fearnan Village Association 