What’s On

Strawberry Tea – Saturday 18th July 15.00 – 17.00 in the McLean Hall. What better way to spend a summer’s afternoon than enjoying a strawberry feast in Fearnan?

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.

May Event

Kaffee und Kuchen Pop Up

In May, our Pop-Up Coffee Shop morphed into Kaffee und Kuchen and a celebration of German baking and savouries. Our bakers skilfully produced some of the better-known German cakes such as Black Forest Gateau and Streusel cake along with German versions of apple cake, ginger biscuits and cheesecake (quark-based).  On the savoury side, there were mini hot dogs with bratwurst sausages and open sandwiches on rye bread. A tempting feast to fuel a very sociable get together.

We were delighted to welcome Keith and Asha from the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service who came to offer advice on domestic fire prevention issues to our members and others attending.

Rare Plant Find

Adrian and Trish recently came across a very rare plant growing on the roots of some trees along the track up the Keltney Burn. It was Toothwort (Lathraea squamaria), described as rare in Scotland, and a very special find.  It is parasitic on the roots of hazel, alder and beech, and can trap and digest tiny insects.  It has no leaves because it doesn’t need them; toothwort gets all of its nutrients from the host plant.

Most of the plant is underground but it flowers in spring with all the flower heads pointing in one direction.

All parts of the 10-20cm tall flowering spike are softly hairy and white in colour, tinged with pink.

The clustered flowers resemble an orchid, but it is named toothwort because it does eerily resemble a stack of teeth.

Another of its names, ‘corpse flower’, may be a nod to the fleshy colours, but possibly this nickname refers to observations of the plant growing in soil above buried bodies.

In mid-summer, the flower spike withers down, having dropped any ripe seeds onto the surrounding soil. It then withdraws its suckers, retreats and rests for the autumn and winter. It is sedentary, persisting in the same location throughout the years, so if you are lucky enough to find a patch you can go back to see its annual emergence.

Resource Hut Update

Over the last few months, Fearnan residents have put some 3.7 kilos of pens and writing implements for recycling in the pen bin in the Resource Hut (that’s a lot of plastic!).  This is a great result but sadly BIC, the company running this recycling scheme, have now stopped the scheme, and so we are unable to accept any more writing implements in the resource hut.

You can still recycle:

• all brands of contact lenses, contact lens blister packs and blister pack foils, and hard plastic contact lenses cases;
• all brands of makeup containers;
• all brands of disposable gloves (including: nitril, latex, vinyl, polyethylene).
• all brands of coffee and drinks pods………

……..and lots of other things in the Resource Hut.  If you haven’t already been in, pop in and have a look! You can also collect bin straps for the PKC bin lids here.

Fearnan Book Club Review

Linda and Judith write:

At our May book club, we reviewed ‘The Knock at the Door’ by Rob Parsons.

It is the true story of Ronnie Lockwood, a homeless man who was invited into the home of Rob, then a young lawyer, and his wife, Dianne, one Christmas and stayed 45 years.

It was enjoyed by all of the group who found it easy to read and moving in parts.

We found it acted as a reminder of people’s goodness and a respite from the chaos going on in the world at the moment.

It portrayed a damning indictment of the care system (then and now) and confirmed that a childhood away from love and family can cause irreparable damage.

There was discussion around Rob’s self-centredness – it seemed to be all about him (his beginnings, being a lawyer, looking after Ronnie) when, in fact, it was Dianne, his wife who did most of the heavy lifting with two children, Ronnie and her health issues.

The quote on the sleeve of the book reads:

 “You will never have read a story like this before but at its heart is a simple message: whether we are a lawyer or a dustman – tomorrow doesn’t always have to be like today.”

At our June meeting, we reviewed Unknown by Heather Critchlow .

All enjoyed the book to various degrees. Enjoyed most was the location setting around Loch Tay, obviously known to us all intimately.

However, there were also some issues with this despite the author at the end of the book, acknowledging that she had taken artistic licence with some of the locations.

Issues were the confusion of Kenmore and Killin, the portrayal of Ben Lawers and the lochan as a mysterious place, walking easily from Killin to the village of Lawers and so on. We suspect this is a perennial problem for authors for getting locations just right when they are real locations!

The plot was considered a little too complex with a number of sidelines, like Jason and Naomi, considered extraneous. Also, some wanted more about the Morna/Australia part. It was thought that the plot complexity came at the expense of characterisations of which more would have been appreciated. Finally, while the thought of things hidden in the hills and the lochans was attractive (the recently discovered still an example), it was also considered slightly unbelievable that a plane had crashed and disappeared with no one knowing.

Our book chosen to review in June is The Names by Florence Knapp.

It has been described as “the best debut novel in years” and “a genius idea for a book”.

We’ll let you know what we think next month!