Annikki continues her hectic schedule

With Annikki's mother in the Old People's Home for her "interval care", Annikki got time to get the garden organised. After the last visit to the stone beach at martiniemi, on Friday evening it was a visit to our local beach to collect fine sand. As it had rained the previous day, only the top layer of sand was dry and fine. So she sat in the sand and collected several bags full with the palms of her hands!



Saturday was her day of rest, but Sunday meant a visit to her brother, Eica, who lives in the forest. From his forest home Annikki collected four fir trees to plant in the Kampitie garden. I sat put inside the car, away from those deadly 3 cm sized mosquitoes.





Can you spot my dear wife in the car she had loaded with the fir trees?



After the fir trees were safely loaded into the car, we were guided by Eica to a small lake where he said there were lotus plants almost in bloom.



Annikki was in ecstasy, as the whole Kampitie garden is designed around the lotus motif.

Off we went and after trying several techniques to fish out some lotus flowers.



Not only did she find lotuses but some other water plants.



Getting the other plants, which were near the shore, were not a problem. But getting the lotuses were a hazard - as although they appeared to be close to the shore, the flowerts had very long stems and were enmeshed under the water into a dangerous weeds support.



All efforts for fishing out the lotuseses were futile.

Annikki finally had to get her feet and hair wet to get one, roots and all with the help of a spade!



We dropped Eica back on his forest property and returned home. Annikki was quite satisfied with her expedition.



Annikki put the lotuses in the pond. Lo and behold, the next afternoon, the lotuses flowers opened and bloomed in the sunshine!



Forget those four large ones you see - they are the plastic ones Annikki has been using.

Now she has the real thing, lotus leaves, flowers, stem, roots, and all.

Tarring the community...

Do you wonder why everything looks so neat and tidy in Finland?

Last week I was quite enlightened when I watch how a team of men equiped with some simple and high tech erquipment did some tidying up in our small community area.

A lot of the road had been dug up last year and this as they changed the electric supply from overhead lines to underground supply. Most of the real work was done with great efficiency last year, but it left the fronts of most of the houses in quite a state. However, with the snow and ice which covers the ground all through 5 months, this was not very evident.

Come summer and we had this team come in and tidy things up - it took just a couple of hours, but the preliminary work was slow and painstaking so that the actual work could be done quickly.

There was a backup truck and the master truck containing the hot bitumen mix.







This was poured into the high tech spreader.





Aided by a couple of men who did the corners by hand filling, this machine laid a perfect topping. This was followed by 2 mini bulldozers who levelled the already level surface, compacting the surfacing.





A couple of men tidied the entire job by hand.



The frontage at Kampitie 6 B took about 5 minutes, and the whole community area of Kampitie took about an hour.

This was an excellent example of men, machines and technology working in unison!

Midsummer Day

(Cross-posted on the CHAFF Blog.)

True to form, the Midsummer Rose has bloomed in the Kampitie Garden.





Yesterday, Annikki and I went on a stone collecting trip invited by Matti (Masa) Moisa to his special place on the beach in Martiniemi. It was a fascinating experience as we had to go through quite unspoilt forest to reach the small rocky beach that Matti has converted into a rock museum.

Annikki was wild with excitement as she saw the wild flowers including the Lily of the Valley and many more that I do not know the names for. But she knew them all, bringing to the fore the immense valuable knowledge in my better half's brain.





Matti has constructed one small stone castle on the beach, which is his morning sunbathing castle. He is busy creating his second castle which will serve as his evening sunbathing castle!



Here are a couple of pictures of the stones in his stone museum.







This copper coloured stone took my fancy.



Matti has developed his own rudimentary, but obviously very effective, technique of moving enormous stones to their resting place on the beach.

The scenery from the beach was truly breathtaking.





One of the beauties of Matti's collection is the stone-age computer keyboard!



Here is the haul of stones that Annikki and Matti made yesterday. It appears to be the start of a beautiful friendship!



On our way home after a most enjoyable evening on the beach I saw my first ant-hill in Finland. I just had to stop and take a photograph of it.



Thank you Matti for such a wonderful evening in the wilds of Finnish nature just half an hour from the centre of Oulu!

Saturday Puzzle Time

Here is a puzzle which was not on my list but one I handled many years ago. Many thanks to Shalu in Chennai for sending it to me.

There is a man who lives on the top floor of a very tall building. Everyday he gets the elevator down to the ground floor to leave the building to go to work. Upon returning from work though, he can only travel half way
up in the lift and has to walk the rest of the way unless it's raining!

Why?

(This is probably the best known and most celebrated of all lateral thinking puzzles. It is a true classic. Although there are many possible solutions which fit the initial conditions, only the canonical answer is truly satisfying. )

(Left to right) Ritesh, Santosh, me, Prof. Mohanan,
Vamsi, Joanna


Ritesh takes a picture of (right to left)
Vamsi, Dr. Mohanan, Santosh and me
at Nallikari Beach at midnight, Thursday

Also, thanks to Ritesh for sending me these two pictures of our Thursday Findians get-together in Oulu.

Some family pictures from yesterday

Joanna and children joined me in entertaining some Indian visitors to Oulu.

Some pictures of the family were captured by my extended family.

Grandsons Samu and Daniel:



Grandsons Daniel and Soda:



Grandson Samu eats his special pizza:



Grandson Daniel eats his fried rice:



Pailin with grandson Daniel:



The children were so at home yesterday that, even as I was busy talking to my guests, I felt that they were being looked after so well.

Thank you Unnop, Pailin and Soda for these great photographs!

Yesterday in perspective

I took the chance to visit the University to see how the International Conference, "Microwave Materials and their Applications" was progressing.

I only listened to one lecture, one about Polymer Ceramic composites (rutile titanium dioxide dispersed in epoxy resin). I was quite disturbed to listen to such poor science emanating from "scientists" from Helsinki and Oulu University!

The modelling methods they talked about would have been thrown out of the window way back in the 1960's as the fundamental concepts of mixing theory of an organic with an inorganic phase were not part of the "equation" brought into consideration when preparing their paper - or if it was, it was not stated!

Luckily, I am retired, so I did not stand up and ask any embarrassing questions!

My objective to visit the conference site was to primarily ask the few Indians attending the conference to join me for dinner. As Annikki was pre-occupied with looking after her mother, I asked daughter Joanna to join me in hosting them. Her husband, Tony, was also busy with another prior engagement.

Here is a photograph after the occasion, which all of us really enjoyed, thanks to the wonderful hosts in the Pailin Restaurant.

Vamsi (Andhra now doing his doctorate in Oulu University), Santosh Babu
(IIT Chennai, India), Ritesh Rawal (Punjab University and now Sheffield University, UK),
Prof. Mohanan (Cochin University), myself and our hosts, Unnop and Pailin.

Dr. Sebastian (Deputy Director, Regional Research Laboratory, Trivandrum) was there for about half an hour as he had to push off to another party.

It was great fun, and hopefully the next time these engineer-scientists come to Oulu, they will call me "before" they plan their visit!

More on Oulu Artist Ann Pöllänen

(Cross-posted in the Oulu Chaff Blog.)

Yesterday I featured the carving skill of an Oulu artist from Thailand, Rakchanok Pöllänen (née Phunsawat) from Kanchanaburi, wife of Petri Pöllanen, who is making history here in Oulu. Ann is not just a soap carver. She is a crochet expert as well as a designer of beautiful dried floral gifts, just as exquisitely beautiful as the artist herself.

Ann with one of her crocheted designs
on display in Oulu at the Thai Pailin Restaurant.

I have pleasure in bring you, here, a couple of her dried floral designs.





I hope to, in the future, feature several top artists from Oulu, Finland who are from the ethnic minorities. If you can give me information about them, please let me know.

I wish that there is one important forum for them to show their work from this Arctic town in the world, something the City of Oulu should do, but fails to.

Thai Artists - Made in Finland

(Cross-posted on the CHAFF Blog.)

The other day Annikki was given a present which really was unique - a carved soap.



I wonder whether she will ever use this work of art!

It was the creation of a Thai artist, Ann, Rakchanok Pöllänen (née Phunsawat) from Kanchanaburi, Thailand, who resides in Oulu, Finland with her Finnish husband, Petri Pöllänen (whom we call Patrick), who amongst other things is a volleyball referee.



Ann is truly unique in that she carves a special soap with the most intricate of floral designs. A special soap has to be used as normal soaps are too waxy and crumble under the delicate touch of the artist's carving knife.





Now Ann is launching sales in Finland of her specially carved soaps under a "Designed and Made in Finland" label.

Each of these designs takes more than a couple of hours of patient work to complete. The beautiful boxes in which they are packed also add much to their value as a presentation item.

They are indeed a valuable gift for Mother's Day, Weddings, Anniversaries, Christmas and other gift giving occasions.

A few weeks ago you may remember that I blogged a picture of intricately carved fruits and vegetables, which is also a fine Thai tradition brought to Finland by yet another Thai artist residing in Oulu, Unnop Khungrai.

Carved Watermelon

These carvings make for great show on a dining table and is yet another wonderful addition of Thai Culture into their new Finnish abode.

I do wish Oulu, which claims to want to be an "International City" will abduct these great Thai art traditions into its own and help these marvellous Thai artists living here to pass it on to Finnish children through the education system. ( :-) I can always dream! "Dialogue Today, Action Tomorrow" - The TOMORROW THAT NEVER COMES?)

Do contact me as to how you can get your hands on these creations directly from the artists or how to contact them personally.

These are valuable additions to Finnish culture.

Photo's from Ulla

Joanna's good family friend, Ulla, was here from London. She joined us at the party to celebrate Kaija's birthday on Saturday evening.

Kaija cuts the birthday cake

Kaija is Michelle's daughter, Michelle being the owner of the best Chinese restaurant in Oulu, called the Royal Garden.


Some of the happy crowd that evening.
Joanna is on the extreme right.


Samu is overpowered by the TV.


I relax with Samu and Daniel.

Ulla took another photo of Daniel when she was at Joanna's place.


Daniel lounging on Ulla's bed.

Thanks Ulla for this great set of photographs.

Saturday Puzzle

No one could explain the puzzle of last Saturday. Not even puzzlwe exptert hashim!

That is probably going to be the case this Saturday as well.



Give it a try.