Delemont et le weekend - 18-20 Sept.

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(not exactly Basel - have asked them to list Delemont! - now adjusted)

this is begun sitting on the train in Basel to go to Colmar, back in France - after my lovely weekend in Switzerland in Delemont in the Jura canton. I travelled via TGV from Paris Gare de l'Est, which is only 2 metro stops away from where my hotel was on line 4 - another good reason why that hotel was so handy. Got to the station of plenty of time and had time to buy a double espresso (very hot in a cardboard cup!) with a chocolate croissant before boarding the train to leave at 10.43am - it took til 1.55pm to get to Basel. Wgen the man next to ne strated reading a book in English (which proved to be a crime thriller) and drinking tea, I naturally though he was an Englishman - but he proved to be a Frenchman who liked to read English books to "practise" his English skills - so he got some conversation practice for free from me as well. He was going to a wedding of a cousin near Strasbourg, where I will go later before going to Luxembourg.

Although my host Gislele had told me the times of the trains I first had to find a place to buy a ticket in the Basel station to go further to Delemont. I went outside the station one way and could see nothing - then realised that there were ticket selling machines below which took credit cards. I had asked the Frenchman whether I could buy a return to come back later - he was not sure - and as it turned out I paid 29.70CHF for a reurn I could not use later, it was same day only, as we found when we went to the station in Delemont and checked on the Sunday. So I then bought my ticket from Delemont to Colmar which was I thought rather expensive for 40CHF as it is only about 40mins as well - but I thonk there is a 5CHF tax on top there somewhere. Anyway my hosts Gisele & Francois were likely expecting me on the first connecting half-hourly train from Basel, which did not happen. I tried my mobile - on roam from Australia, having decided $4 a minute ot Vodafone was likely overall cheaper - so I was told in Paris - than using a French SIM outside France. I was obviously making some mistake in the dialling code as I coudl not connect to their number, so simply asked the person in the railwy booking office to ring them, and Francois came and collected me.

Barbara and I met Gisele & Francois on Magnetic Island off Townsville in 1995, and they came and stayed with us in Sydney later when they came south. We redeemed the privilege by visiting them for a couple of nights in Sept. 1995 on a round the world trip to Canada, Ireland, Switz and Italy. When we were there in Sept.95 it was the baptisme of their first daughter Maitena - they now have 3 children, Roxanne who is about 13-14, and Corentin the boy who is now 8. Obviously with a larger family they had to move house from their previous apartment and had one built for them, as they could not find anything exactly as they wanted. It is a very nice two storey house with timber parquet wooden floors all over and very clean and simple. I was particularly impressed by their effective "nuclear winter" (or short stay) fall out shelter basement - with hinged door and window that are literally like bank vault construction, being over 6 inches thick of concrete with massive hinges to carry the weight and lever-closing mechanism. It was cheaper to build their own, otherwise you have to pay a tax to the local authority to pay towards the communal one.

They have a quite large outdoor grass area, some fruit trees and a little vege garden. However Gisele's mother and father came around a little after I arrived with about 5 kilos of plums off their tree and some beans from their garden, as they had been away for a few days and the beans of course keep growing. There was therefore a communal exercise in destoning and slicing the plums which Gisele turned into about 7-8 jars of jam - I helped stir sometimes! Her annual record was 105 jars of jam one year - as a result the children will not eat store-bought jam and seem to very uninterested in McDonalds etc or sweet things etc, which is of course a good start to a healthy life-style. She also made a very nice open tarte aux preuneaux from the plums, which we enjoyed after our raclette. Barbara will of course recall the raclette which we also had last time. A simple meal of the special raclette cheese melted on little steel trays under a table mounted grill, scraped off with little wooden spatulas and then eaten with boiled potatoes, cornichons, cut up raw veges like carrot and peppers. Very nice and simple and healthy. And of course the Swiss eat quite a bit of cheese!
As I am now in Colmar in France will post this with pic of my hosts in Delemont, and also one of Francois in front of the house before he took me to the station today. Rest follows later.

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Photos

Francois et Gisele et famille
children are (L>R) Corentin, Roxanne & Maitena

Francois at Rue des Vergers
in Delemont

Comments

[Huddo]

Contact!
Hi Mike, Was getting a tad worried with no blogs. Rang Melita, all is good now. Will reply in full later on. Love Huddo and girls.

[Huddo]

Cheese snacks.
Hi Mike, Great! to have you back, no news was NOT good news! Sounds like it was great to see your friends Francois and family again, now 3 children. Reminded me of mum's jam making with a 105 jars. "Nuclear Winter" story was something new, was unaware of that. Keep well, Love Huddo and girls.