Hi Cathedralites,
It is almost a 45 days since the last edition of Seventh Heaven. This time I
was not inundated with anxious queries as to the state of my health. Most
of you who wrote were interested to know whether my hard disk was OK!! :-)
The reason for the delay this time was not my hard disk. I had to get a
replacement hard disk, no doubt. They changed my defective 10 GB one to a
20 GB hard disk for the same price.
I have been busy with several other matters.
We have to give up our beautiful apartment in the centre of Oulu by the end
of this month. Annikki's dad died in February 2001. Her mother (81 years)
was admitted to hospital for routine checks and determined to have 50%
dementia (Alzeimhers), 20% tunnel vision and only 20% of hearing. Also she
has delusions. Hence she needs constant care. So, we have to move back to our
former residence (Annikki's family home), which however needs a massive
rennovation job to be done. Annikki has been removing the accumulated junk -
and already about 20 garbage bags of stuff have been readied to go to the Red
Cross, Salvation Army, etc. Now we have to throw out all the junk furniture
and organise moving our stuff across. I am not very enamoured of this prospect
- but we will have to shift in well before winter sets in. The entire heating
system has to be changed from wood to oil, the cellar made into living area
with underfloor heating, my office room planned to be less than a mess than at
present - as now it is my den but there it will be part of the house.
While clearing out the rubbish we found a bank passbook of Annikki's mother
dated 1942 and another one of Annikki's dated 1955 (when she was just 11 years
old). It is noted in Annikki's passbook that she was given a piggybank when
she started this account!! These passbooks have been sent off to the Bank's
headquarters to find out what those deposits are worth today!! Even at a
nominal 5% interest both of these could be today worth enough for a couple
of dinners in a fancy restaurant in Oulu!!
News has been trickling in from many of you. In summary:
Willie Shiri has been busy adding contacts to my list.
Yezad Kapadia has provided deetails of the next reunion plans for 49ers.
Anthony Ramsinh has been watching his horses win races.
Rumy Kapadia has been singing praises of yours truly to other Cathedrlaites.
Aubrey Ballantine has sent in a couple of great pictures of Cathedralites - soon to be revealed at the new site.
Doreen Feibusch got her daughter married.
Doreen also suffered an attack of "Montezuma's Revenge" when holidaying with her husband in Caucun, Mexico.
Abe Hayeem returned from his holiday, missed my daughter in London, but got his Alvar Aalto vase which I sent as his prize.
Bhupinder Singh Anand visited UK but missed his appointments with both Abe and Tony (see later about Tony Stone).
Sudhir Anand visited Helsinki and met up with Ajeet Mathur. They discussed Dead Chicken!
My son-in-law Tony visited Philly but was not able to meet up with Sexy Narayan Acharya. However, he did see a B17 display.
Percy Mistri has been completing the last rites of his mother, who passed away of May 17 aged 97. (I sent condolences on behalf of all of us.)
Adi Cooper got his son Carl married.
Anju Lakhani is keeping many of us amused wither her regular postings.
Eddie Pettersson sent me a picture of his lovely dog.
I wrongly recorded Suchita Shivdasani's maiden name as Assomul when it should have been noted as Kripalani.
Brinda Chinappa's (The Somayas) email in Bombay is bouncing (could someone tell her).
I have my 70 year old Maths Professor from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, Dr.
Anthony Stone holidaying at Oulu at present. He is noted Indologist and an
expert on Indian language scripts and fonts. I am discussing transliteration
with him!! Tony lived in Alwaye, Kerala, before teaching Maths at St.
Stephen's, Delhi. He is from Oxford University but now lives near St. Albans
near London.
If this 70 year old can make the trip to the Arctic to visit us, I see no
reason why some of you younger bucks and does cannot make it here also.
Tony chose to visit Annikki and me as he has 2 weeks off from looking after
his wife who is suffering from Parkinsons. He is picking my brains on how
to push his web sites to the top of the search engines.
We were hoping to have a reunion during Tony's visit with Ajeet Mathur, who
like me is a Cathedralite plus a Stephanian. But Ajeet was busy with his
research in Tampere in South Finland, so coould not get away to reach Oulu
during this two week period.
The Newsy Notes web site continues to be developed. The Cathedral School
Picture Library project is progressing very nicely. Hope you enjoy the
picture of Willie and Pushpa Shiri and their daughter which was
taken by Hasnain Chinwalla (which is from this picture library).
We are having a great summer with our sunsets at around half past midnight
and sunrise at just after 2 am.
I am testing a new mailing software with this issue of Newsy Notes - so
please do report any problems about readability, etc. to me so any
corrective action can be taken by the time of the next issue.
More in a short while - but please do keep the emails and photographs
coming in.
Very best regards from Annikki and me...
Jacob Matthan
Savage House Captain 1959
Oulu, Finland
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