Up-Coming Events in Fearnan

28th January at 11.00: Baking for Burns Pop-Up. The FVA’s offering is not a Burns Supper, more of a Teacup Toast to Scotland’s most famous poet and lyricist and a celebration of the best traditional Scottish baking. Live music in the Burns tradition from Doug. £3.00pp in the village hall.

6^th and 20^th February: Games Mornings. The Mclean Hall continues to offer Games Mornings on a fortnightly basis in the new year.

Join Lesley and Frances between 10.00 and 12.00 for indoor curling, table tennis and quoits as well as homebakes, a cuppa and a chat.

4^th March at 11.00: Pancake Pop-Up. Shrove Tuesday falls late this year, so the FVA’s Pancake Pop-Up is not until March. Join us on 4^th March for freshly baked pancakes, straight from the griddle to the plate, and lots of toppings to go with them. £3.00pp in the village hall.

29^th March 4-5pm: Fearnan Village Association Annual General Meeting. All members welcome, the venue is the village hall.

12^th April between 15.00 – 17.00: The FVA will be serving an Easter-themed Afternoon Tea in the village hall. Join us for some traditional bakes, freshly made tea and coffee, and hopefully some Spring weather.

13^th May at 11.00: Kaffee und Kuchen Pop-Up. Last year, the FVA took some Italian inspiration for one of the Pop-Ups and this year it’s a German theme, so if you think black forest gateau, apple cake, stollen or strudel, you’re on the right lines. £3.00 in the village hall.

Northern Lights

The Northern Lights can be quite elusive and easy to miss, but every so often we get lucky.

Let’s hope the appearance of this aurora in the skies over Fearnan on 1st January is a good omen for 2025!

Fearnan Book Club 10^th Anniversary

Linda writes:

At our first meeting of 2025, we celebrated 10 years of the Fearnan Book Club. The details of the very first meeting were recorded on the FVA Blog so we were able to look back and see that it took place on the 20th January 2015, having been postponed for a week due to bad weather!

The first book read was The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith. Many of the original members still attend and the group has now grown to 12 members (we also know there is a wider circle of Blog readers who include our selected books on their own reading lists). We are a very enthusiastic group of readers who have enjoyed reading a wide range of genres over the years. We take turns to choose the book and enjoy being challenged when the book selected is something we might not otherwise have read.  Our discussions are far reaching and over the years we have explored many themes and, of course, haven’t always agreed! Even during Covid lockdown, we selected and reviewed books monthly online.

To mark the occasion, Frances had created one of her legendary carrot cakes decorated beautifully with a stack of books, one of which was ominously titled ‘Murder in the Hall‘, complete with dagger and spy glass. Elaine got the evening under way by opening a very large bottle to toast the club.

We looked back at our favourite books over the years and reminisced over books enjoyed. Since 2016, at our annual pre-Christmas meal, we have voted for our favourite book of the year.

2016: His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet
2017: The Dry by Jane Harper
2018: The Other Hoffmann Sister by Ben Fergusson
2019:  The Magpie Murders by Anthony Horowitz; The Lost Man by Jane Harper (Joint)
2020: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
2021: The Beekeeper of Aleppo by Christy Lefteri; Away with the Penguins by Hazel Prior;The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey; 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world by Elif Shafak
2022: The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
2023: The Bookseller of Inverness by S.G. McLean
2024: Rose Nicholson by Andrew Greig

We look forward to another 10 years of sharing and discussing our chosen books, starting with The Whalebone Theatre.

At our first book club meeting of 2025, we reviewed The Whalebone Theatre by Joanna Quinn. This was a substantial read, and we were glad we’d allowed ourselves two months to read it.

This book received an overwhelmingly positive response from the group who were impressed by such a beautifully written, well researched and compelling debut novel. It is a historical fiction family saga which explores many themes.

It follows the lives of three siblings, Christabel, Flossie and Digby from their childhood between the wars to the dangerous undercover roles they played during WW2. The setting was Dorset where the family lived in a grand country house with the associated lifestyle which was well described. The heroine, Christabel is brave and headstrong. We found her escapades both amazing and amusing. The children were allowed to have a wild, unsupervised childhood which shaped their characters. They find a whale washed up on the beach in 1928 and use the rib cage to build a theatre where their imagination can come to life. This in some way compensated for the lack of affection from their parents and their strict governess. We followed the children through the decades as they grew up to find their place in the world. We predicted the death of one of the siblings which illustrated the futility of war. We commented that Flossie experienced the biggest life journey. Her romance with a German POW was well portrayed. The characterisation was excellent, and we recognised many of the secondary characters as being typical of that era and class.

Some found the first part slow but agreed that this was necessary to introduce and develop the characters. The book was in five different time periods and gathered pace as the family dynamics changed and the children grew as individuals.

As we reflected on the book, many of us recalled images in the story that impacted on us e.g. Christobel planting a flag in the whale to claim it, the camaraderie of pre-war training in Scotland, the joy of playing with a wooden sword.

Playacting, love of the stage and the activities around the Whalebone Theatre are themes throughout the book. Christabel stages a play about the end of the war, and it finally opens as a venue for local children as she imagines a future for it.

Our next read is the 2001 novel, ‘The Secret Life of Bees’ by Sue Monk Kidd. It is set in 1964 during the civil rights era. It is a powerful story of the ability of love to transform our lives. It was also adapted for the 2008 film of the same name.