An important chore completed this morning

Yes, I have been absent from all my blogs for quite some time. We have been through a few traumatic weeks, which I will blog about in the not so distant future.

But today is a different day!

Yesterday, Annikki and I visited Kuopio in central eastern Finland. The area is truly magnificent with lakes and forests everywhere. We are starting our new operations there as we expand the reach of Raantel Oy, the furnished housing company which is sky rocketing as a national enterprise. We have the Slovenian team of electrical engineers moving there shortly to erect the new Post Office Sorting Centre, a huge sophisticated high tech complex which will sort letters and packets for the whole of central Finland.

It was quite a successful visit. We covered about 700 km yesterday (up and down) and reached back around 21:30.

I am writing (with Annikki) a new book called "Inheritance Nightmare" a true story concerning the high level of corruption in Finland, quite contra to what Transparency international, the Swiss Organisation, have been reporting. I finished a couple of chapters, and after a bath, got to bed around midnight. The book will be published in a very short time in both languages - Finnish (by Annikki) and English (by me).

I was up before sunrise, which is now around 5 am (It has been changing by about 3 minutes every day since midsummer! Sunset changes by about 4 minutes a day reducing our daylight hours by about 7 minutes every day till we reach our "total darkness phase!)

There are a few of my alma mater friends, many whom I have never met in person, who have become dear to me over the years. 49ers Yezad Kapadia and Naval Patel, are two which spring to mind. They were the brilliant duo of 1949. If one did not get the prize, the other did!

After my morning ablutions i had to make a very important phone call - to speak to Mysore to wish Naval Patel a very happy 75th birthday. He picked up the phone on the first ring, so I was afraid I may have woken him up early on his birthday.

I have never "spoken" to Naval before, but he has spoken to me for many years with his wonderful emails and comments. He told me that the 75th birthday is not such an important milestone (unlike in Finland) and as the Parsi New Year had been celebrated on Wednesday, he had done his celebrations on that day.

We chit chatted for a few minutes. I hope to drop in on Armaity and him in end October on our Bharat Darshan. Mysore drives pleasant memories through my bones as I had a wonderful childhood there.

Happy birthday, Naval and may you have many many more. I do hope you will try to make it to Finland sometime soon.