DannyBoy

a feeling that something bad will happen; fearful apprehension. That's about the size of it: waking in the middle of the night from something best described as a nightmare perhaps owing to the idea I wasn't taking medication for all my ailments...when I began to figure how long this situation had obtained? Unsurprising, perhaps, given all the different medications I get to take as prescribed by my doctors and nurses, plus a few others that have been self-prescibed at different times in my life for good reasons offered up by, eg., my new Dentist in 1994 who put me onto Coenzyme Q, in the battle against periodontisis, which runs in my family, though thankfully not everyone only some of us: the rest have others, lol. More specifically to do with different medications sometimes need to be taken in isolation of others to preclude their interacting, the one with the other and effectively drowning out the benifit of the more vulnerable. One such being Thyroxine to treat a difficie...

This first pic where we have lived these past 36 years... Then a view from the East side of the house to where today's action took place.  My hands still cold from holding my mobile phone. Just at this time of year, let's say from the beginning of December, through the darkest day around the 21 st December this year, and onwards to say the end of January, all the right criteria line up to give our living area a view of the SUN: shining its first rays of the new day over the horizon beyond our east facing garden, to the north of the red out-buildings of our next door neighbour, on our southern side, to the north the gazebo of one of our North Eastern neigbours, and beyond the red out-building, visible to the south, another neighbour, both he and his wife recently departed for other dwellings they possess, in the capital, before reaching another apparently abandoned summer cottage, set back to the north, for the sea and its sun, rising beyond for our e...

But only with hindsight looking back these 36 years to 1988 when I moved here, or 48 when I first visited the town in which OyV was built. Therebefore to 1970-72 for a post-graduate 2 year term, as "Tutkija" or Researcher in English, more than 50 years ago, and finally to the first 5 years of the 1960's a total of 65 years ago. When it has to be said all very reasonable ppl, within their own cultural norms, or cultures, i.e. straddling the Finnish-Finnish and Swedish-Finnish, but not readily accommodating other cultures, as I am bound to add. Best summed up as a free for all, as it operated at OyV when viewed from its upper echelons, most accommodating from the lowly level of worker or Laboratory Assistant/Technician level, as very minor cogs in large wheels, only briefly reaching a higher level post-graduation, though still a worker rather an Manager as befalls the Directorship, they enticed me with, to begin my current sojourn. Okay, so long as I was working among m...

Just for a moment put yourselves in my shoes: this fatherless kid of 15 deciding to leave school, not the local High or Grammar Schools but his Bury Junior Technical School which had just introduced a third year to its curriculum so it too could could take students one year closer University entrance in taking the Nationwide requisite GCE (General Certificate of Education) O-level (O for Ordinary). Preparatory to later sitting, not up to typically 9 subjects, but a restrictive selected 3 A-levels (A for Advanced) to anticipate the chosen University course. Like Chemistry, Physics and Maths to pursue one or other of these three disciplines, or English, French and History to pursue one of the Humanity courses, for example. But sod that! An extra year doing stuff like Woodwork 1/2 day a week, Practical Drawing another half day, or Metalwork a third when none of these appealed to this young fellow, as preparation for the career he would pusue in industry. Instead, I knuckeled down to joi...

And in order of stature the most notable: Philip Cromton and Dick Orton my directors at JR Crompton and Bros Ltd., each ex-Public School Charterhouse, today's fees for residents £44 000 plus pa, ex-WW II war heroes and repectively part owners of the Paper Manufacturing Company, JRC founded in 1830, Philip the last male descent and Chairman of its Board and CEO, then Dick his brother-in-law his Sales and Marketing Director. Reino Österlund and Boris Höglund of Oy Visko Ab pre-1988 before I was invited to move from JRC to OyV towards the end of 1987 from my post of R. and D. Manager and Project Coordinator for Sausage Casing Paper Developments, serving the two German manufacturers, the two US, plus their Belgian and French subsidiaries, accepting the move after turning down the first invitation. Tor Johansson and Ulf Sjöblom, the two ppl who 2 years into my 4 year contract as Research and Development Director, to replace the fairly new Production Director (less than 2 years), and t...

Yeah,, but regrettably not my being original, but nevertheless unregrettably getting the vibe before I get to kick the bucket. Words attributed to the much more insightful David Bowie, who spent the last days of his life hurriedly completing and publishing his latest (hit) LP record, fully knowledgeable his time was then limited... And therein perhaps resides the key to having such thoughts..? In my own case these past 23 yrs, since 2002 4 6, the day of my big MI, when happily I woke up in the Intensive Care Unit of our nearest hospital for such events, when to my question of the resident doctor "Was it a small one?", his answer was "No, you're lucky to have survived!", i.e. cobbling together some of the chat that triggered this conclusion. Not a few ppl surprised when I told them it was one of the best days of my life, since had it been a small one, I should undoubtedly have continued smoking, as indeed would my wife also, especially since her addiction was ...

...that my pay was An Embarassment...suggesting perhaps that his, Ulf Sjöblom's understanding of the workings of Visko before his arrival had never been explained to him, betrayed a total lack of understanding, devoid of imagination? ...his display of naiivety not the sole example of how he had landed on his feet, in coming to work for Visko at the end of 1989, starting at approximately the same time as Tor Johansson. At this juncture I had been advised of their functions and that my duties as Research and Development Director were unaffected although this was to change very shortly after their arrival when Totte demonstrated he was the master of all trades when no-one else knew anything of consequence, telling lies a major weapon in his armory. The two together dealing for me the blow aptly be described as a "Double Wammy"?lol To start with he was to become renown for hiring mainly women in a traditionally male-dominated profession that embraced the meat and associate...

...spoken with tongue in cheek perhaps if only on occasion! Like when Leo Martin the Gen Mgr of Crompton's Paper Mill in Elton, Bury was heard to have exclaimed after I showed him my response to a request from Oy Visko Ab's management in the shape of Reino Österlund, for me to describe the essential nature of Casing Paper in terms of its construction, including the use of regenerated cellulose for wet-strengthening using an on-machine size-pressing station, using a similar solution of viscose, which had similar properties to Oy Visko Ab's processes. The thing he probably didn't reflect on was that my description came from working in the pulp industry that produced the Dissolving Pulp for this process, the Cellophane Film industry to produce Cellophane, likewise from this process, and now working as Research and Development Mgr for JR Crompton and Bros Ltd, who used it for wet-streghtening Casing base papers. His asking me had I stayed up all night to write the descript...

At different times in my life a collection of words have buzzed for me personally as if aside from others they each in turn attached a significance special only to me sometimes my being unaware of the fact... Take for example the use of the word Ongoing which came into my usage I know not when only that in 1975 in my new job as Research and Development Manager my predecessor, a guy to my knowledge who had never been anywhere, though better educated in terms of general education, i.e. attending a better Secondary School, took exception to my use of this particular word, owing to the fact of its being an Americanism as if that was some great crime, another aspect for me irrelevant, since I chose to use it to convey the meaning associated with it, never mind was one in the UK or USA... At another time in my life Solicitous became another such word. A word my elder son drew attention from around 2008 after I had retired at the end of July, when for most of August I had been climbing h...