This is our version of a sunny day. I was thinking of the Seasonal Affective Disorder SAD, we have not only the absence of sun but the absence of an entire season of summer. I was in my favorite little Italian store, Mina, just across the border in Ponte Tresa, Italy, where while my order of Parma dolce was being sliced, the 4 clerks behind the counter were exchanging comments with me about, of course, the weather. One jocularly asked how it was at my home, knowing that I live in the green and verdant Malcantone, Swiss German guidebooks call it the ‘green lung’ of the Lugano area, saying laughingly, “it must be like Ireland”. Another sourly said, “in July it rained 24 out of 31 days”, while another jumped in to say, “and now (August 3) it’s 3 out of 3, great, we’re starting out well.” Even for this month, I don’t remember one whole day where we would wake up in the morning to sunshine and end in the evening without rain. But we are lucky; our home has not suffered flooding, our village has not been threatened by mudslides. On Wednesday, as we were driving back down one set of mountains, in the Bernese Oberland from Gstaad, another mountain side in the Engadine was hit by a  mudslide just as the famous Glacier Express train was coming by from St. Moritz. Eleven people were injured, 5 seriously. But as all the reports said, there was “Gluck in  Ungluck”, luck in bad luck, because our wonderful Swiss vegetation saved those cars from falling into the deep, rushing waters at the bottom of that precipice. Three railway cars were pushed from the tracks, and one was pushed completely off and was left dangling in the alpine tree layers which caught and saved those passengers.