Last week I visited my old hometown of Siggenthal Station and most importantly, my old neighbor and the always so lovely Irma. When my family and I lived in Siggenthal Station in the early nineties she was our local grandmother, as the rest of our relatives were a few thousand kilometers away. She still has that picture of me and my sister sitting in her cherry tree from back when we were just a few years old on display in the kitchen.

Many things have changed in fifteen years. The cherry trees are no more, instead a new block of houses have appeared in the yard. The house we used to live in has new tenants that don’t seem to care about the now-rampant garden. The village has grown; the land is attractive and the clockwork Swiss trains now visit the station twice as often.

But Irma was just the same as when I saw her the last time, and the house doesn’t seem to have changed at all. The same posters of “Chloote” decorate the vestibule even now. (I have still to meet such a devoted Hockey fan!)

She had been preparing my favorite Swiss dish, Spätzle and surprised me with “Swedish cakes”, that turned out to be what we call Prinsesstårta back home.

Thank you, Irma, for all what you’ve done for us all these years. See you again soon!