Welcome to the FAARTALS website, brought to you by the Fairfield and Avondale Retired Teachers & Lecturers Society. As you can see we are mostly about walking in the countryside, preferably up and down hills and perhaps a little slowly as befits our venerable status. We are protected by, St. Petronilla, patron saint of hill walkers, and enjoy the conviviality of hostelries where we imbibe in traditional potions to recover from our perambulatory exertions. (Chief Faartal)
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As mentioned in the AGM posting I was pleased to have my picture of a snowdrift published on the BBC main news pages last week. For the records a copy of this picture is attached. No money changed hands but what price can you put on fame … at least for 30 seconds! The Chief Faartal has a special birthday this week and of course we wish her Many Happy Returns of the Day. There being no fixed retirement age for Chief Faartals, we assume she will continue to occupy her elevated position for many years to come. More power to her old boots. It has been pointed out by a multitude of observers that under Article 17 of the Constitution (reproduced below) an Annual General meeting of the Society must be held, early in the New Year. By any reasonable definition – where 'reasonable' is defined as costing slightly less than a pint of the best bitter in the Peak District, to be purchased by the Chief Faartal and donated to the Society's Honorary Webmaster, thank you very much – the Meeting should be held in the month of January. Lamentably, to date no notice of such a meeting has come to the attention of the huddled masses! In Petronilla's name, we, the aforementioned huddled masses, beseech the Chief Faartal to extract a digit and call a Meeting as soon as possible to prevent the possibility of schism or revolution, for verily indeed most Faartals are truly revolting. Article 17 of the Constitution of the Faartals, kindly reproduced without the permission of the Chief Faartal. An Annual General Meeting will be held early each New Year to assess the performance of the officials and consider their reappointment. The meeting is to be held on Kinder Scout as near dawn as possible and will require the necessary quorum for any decisions to be implemented. HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL FRACTALS EVERYWHERE After a long period of inactivity, Technical Support spotted that the site had been hacked by some fiend and was sporting a 'Trojan' infection. Having performed a disinfection routine, it was decided to bring the inner workings of the site right up to date. So faartals.co.uk it is now running on the latest version of WordPress (2.9.1) in 'turbo mode. There is some tidying up to do, but what we really need now is some new content. Of course with all the snow around at the moment that may take a little longer to arrange, or maybe not as everyone is at home huddled around the cosy glow from their PCs. And just as quickly as it came……The first four pictures are taken in the same places where flood water flowed 14 hours earlier. The Council did an amazing job in tidying up the town and Park overnight but it was a different story in the Retail Park.
Yesterday's river…This is where the lady was trying to cross a torrent to get home last night.
Tools of the trade…A boat and a wheelbarrow.
The clean up begins at the tearooms
I bet there are many people in Chesterfield who did not even know we had two 'rivers' flowing through it. Yesterday they made their mark and the pictures tell it all. Not as bad as Sheffield, but still a disaster for those affected.  Traffic going nowhere. Queens Park's new tearooms.
Going home – somehow!
Boating weather
Saleing buy!
Recording history
Pets at home – I hope not. Waiting for the tide to turn! -A long wait as no other way through the floods.
7.20 p.m. on the Spire clock The river Rother near Chesterfield station    Houses flooded near the station
The river is supposed to flow under the bridge not over it.
A deserted bypass with 2 cars facing the wrong way! One of the driest places in Chesterfield
A tale of jealousy, escape, passion and purity. The life of St. Petronilla, patron saint of mountain travellers, is celebrated annually on 31st May. Locked away by her father before escaping across the Alps and then unrequited love in the Bavarian forest. This was the turbulent life for young Petronilla. She was the stunningly beautiful daughter of a devout Christian in 4th Century Rome. This possessive father locked his daughter away from admiring suitors until she escaped to Rhaetia at the edge of Roman civilisation in what is now southern Germany.
It was there she entranced a young king, Flaccus, who vowed to take her for his wife. But the marriage of a Pagan and a Roman could never happen and she was eventually taken back to Rome where she starved herself to death. It was said that she preferred to die rather than marry a pagan or could it be that she died because she was not allowed to marry him? We shall never know, but eventually she became a virgin martyr honoured in the annals of Church history.
Was it her journey across the Alps that gave her the status as the Patron Saint of mountain travellers? Again we shall never know but it is far more credible than her patronage of the French Dauphin, based solely on the tenuous discovery of a dolphin found carved on her sarcophagus!
Was Petronilla involved in the ancient Bavarian game of ‘Spuckender Kirsch Kern?’ - Possibly! Today this game involves little more than spitting cherry stones as far as possible. However this tradition is borne, like so many other things, out of an ancient ritual with deeper undertones.
Evidently the local Germanic tribes used to harvest the wild cherries in early summer and celebrate the occasion with a feast. By tthe middle of June the main rituals of Spring were long gone and most eligible men had taken a wife. At the end of the feast the remaining single women of the tribe competed with each other to spit cherry stones at a cowbell hung 20 paces away. The first damzel to ring the bell got the choice of any single men remaining whether the man in question liked it or not.
Such was the expertise of these women that they could hit the bell with their eyes shut – if they wanted to!
It is thought that this practice was adapted by the whole tribe to become a defiant gesture against their Roman occupiers. Is it therefore just a coincidence that St Petronilla's Day is adjacent to this cherry fest and is it also coincidental that she was renown for wearing cherry red shoes and matching clothing?
I think not. Roger. Not exactly a walk, but still something of an outing! It was necessary for the Faartals to make a weekend trip to New York (near Ripley) to discover the murderer of Pepi Roni, the Godfather of the Roni family. We were greeted by Father Alfredo, with more bottles in his/her bag than rabbits in a magician's hat, but by midnight we had disposed of them all. Clair Voyant produced a copious meal of which any Italian would be proud, and which was very fitting for the occasion. Mama Rosa looked suitably distraught all evening while the dapper Rocco Scarfazzi was always close by to comfort her in spite of his fiancee, Tara Misu being around all the time. Mind you it appeared that Tara had been around quite a bit, if you know what I mean! Daughter Angel soon showed she was a woman of ambition and fantasies and by no means a good Italian girl! Her main fantasy was the dashing Bo Jalais, a French wine making cousin in charge of the Scarfazzi vineyards. Lastly came son Marco Roni, who Mama said was a good boy! All he wanted to do was play professional football, but his family had other ideas and insisted that he worked in the family restaurant. Could you believe that one of these Faartals was the prime suspect??
Many thanks to mine hosts for a brilliant evening! For the third time in eight days we have been up this route and with good reason! The views are stunning at any time of year, but when the snow was around it looked completely different to today when there was mist in the air which broke to give good patches of blue. We also had two younger additions to our group! (Spot the young ones!)
 One of the reasons for the outing was to try out the new boots -
We shall post a further picture of the said boots in 6 months time to see if they are still in this pristine condition!! |
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