faartals » FAARTALS

Welcome

Chief Faartal — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:17:36 +0000

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)

Chief Faartal is a Diamond Lady

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:05:46 +0000

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.

Another Constitutional Crisis Looms

Nick — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 20:03:02 +0000

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.

St. Petronilla’s Day 2010

Nick — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 19:43:48 +0000

31 May, 2010

Arrangements for the celebration of the patron saint of mountain travellers, and by extension FAARTALS are yet to be finalised. Something is bound to happen – isn't it?

St. Petronilla’s Day

Roger — Mon, 28 May 2007 14:00:52 +0000

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.

The Faartals in New York

Roger — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:13:38 +0000

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!

Constitutional Crisis

Chief Faartal — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:27:35 +0000

Members may not have realised that under clause 3 of our beloved CONSTITUTION, it is suggested that the revered post of Chief Faartal can only be held by a person of the male persuasion. This could be an error of drafting, or indeed caused by excessive draught of one sort or another, but unless our constitution makes it clear that the male embraces the female, at least in terms of pronouns, we may be guilty of a form of discrimination that would not be tolerated in less important aspects of life e.g. employment.

If any Faartal sees fit to call an extraordinary general meeting to discuss this pressing topic, your Chief Faartal has checked that Kinder Scout is available this afternoon for an emergency debate. If the agenda allows, it would also be possible to discuss the finer points of cross-dressing in relation to the wearing of St Petronilla's shoes by a male Chief Faartal.