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It’s a beautiful morning for Val’s birthday. Even a walk to the Co-op is a pleasure on days like this.

Right now she’s at the hairdressers, and later we’ll be out for a few celebratory drinks.

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Emily hosted a barbecue at ours last night. We were 10 in total, mostly from Wengen but Steve came up from Lauterbrunnen and Will and Nick came all the way from Grindelwald.

We had lots of nice food and of course plenty of drinks, but we knew a storm was coming so we packed everything up before it arrived. We didn’t have to wait long. Ali got a great shot.

It was pretty spectacular, but eventually the rain drove us indoors, where we continued into the night.

A very nice evening. Today has been spent clearing up and cleaning the barbecue. It looks like rain again.

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Popped out for a few drinks with Emily last night.

Today’s trip takes us over to Grütschalp, where one of our favourite walks begins. We start in the forest.

Views back to Wengen.

The path climbs through the forest, and eventually the trees begin to thin out as we gain height.

A little further along we reach the Saustal (Saus valley). it’s wild, and absolutely beautiful.

After crossing the Sausbach river we climb again. The terrain gets steeper.

Here’s the Sausbach river again, thundering down the mountain. We can see this from our balcony at home.

Eventually we arrive at the tiny hamlet of Sulwald. A miniature cable car (capacity – 6) takes us down to the village of Isenfluh, from where we catch the bus back to Lauterbrunnen. By the time we got there it was dinner time, so we stopped at the new Turkish takeaway and bought beer and gyros. Delicious!

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Until recently, the way to get to Grindelwald was on the train via Scheidegg or Zweilütschinen. Not any more. With the new gondola from Männlichen down to Grindelwald it’s much quicker to get the cable car up from Wengen and go ‘over the top’. It was a bit gloomy at Männlichen.

The new gondolas are very comfortable, and the lift is fast.

We had a lovely lunch at the Memory bar, and a good mooch around the shops. Final shopping score was Val 0 – Mike 2 (hiking shorts and trousers). Now we’re off back to Wengen to meet Emily for a beer.

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Wherever you go in the mountains, you’re never far from running water. The mountain streams need to be managed as they pass through the village in order to avoid paths and buildings being damaged. This morning we’re woken by a helicopter delivering pipes to the field at the bottom of our garden.

The pipes will be used to drain water from the old railway track bed that runs past our house. A trench has been dug to take the water into the Brunnibach stream.

Having been woken up we may as well head down to the valley for some exercise. It’s a nice morning, but rain is forecast. I head off in the direction of Stechelberg.

On my way back I wave at Clive and Alison, aka the idleskiers, who are on their way to Trummelbach. I arrive back in Lauterbrunnen a sweaty mess, and we catch the train back up to Wengen. The storm rolled in just before we got to the village, and we got pretty wet just dashing the 30 metres or so across to the Co-op. When we finished our shopping the rain was even worse, and we sheltered under the entrance to the Hotel Silberhorn for a while until it eased off.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel so bad about being woken up by the guys building the drain.

Every August we have a music event to celebrate composer Mendelssohn’s link with the village. For this we need a grand piano, and it was delivered today.

The flying piano for the Mendelssohn Music Week in Wengen. #piano #helicopters #Switzerland #wengen pic.twitter.com/vkfYCA8LFA

— Wengen Switzerland (@WengenSwiss) August 11, 2020

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It’s going to rain today, but we don’t know when. A good walk on days like this is Mürren to Grütschalp, as we can bail out at Winteregg if it really pours. It’s good to have a plan B. Views back to Wengen in the last of the sunshine.

Approaching Grütschalp, the rain is almost upon us.

We just made it. The rain began while we were waiting for the cable car to take us back down to the valley.

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Not much to say today – we popped up to the village this morning for shopping and to collect our eggs. Even then it was super hot – the Panama hat that I bought for walking is proving very useful. The gardener turned up just after lunch, I didn’t envy him one bit. Val did her long-distance German lesson with her buddies in Shropshire this afternoon. We’ve just had dinner and a thunderstorm is rolling around the Jungfrau, though we’ve had no rain yet. Fingers crossed it stays dry enough for a walk to the pub later.