All hail the sun!

I don't know how often you see the sun during the winter where you live, dear reader. We don't see it a whole lot in this corner of the world, especially during the winter.
I've made a habit of killing an hour after work at 7:30 in the a.m., because to head home at 8:30 means that it's quieter on the bus—the kids are already in school and the rush hour is dying down. So, to pass these sixty minutes, I hang out in a Soho coffeeshop, at which I've become quite the regular. With its tapestries, incense sticks and indie rock music, it reminds me of the Cambridge, Massachusetts cafes I spent my youth in, either making my own indie noise playing bass or just chillin'. It's fun to pretend that I'm back on my stomping ground as I solve Sudoku puzzles over a coffee or hot cocoa.
But I also like to spend time by the Thames riverbank in Victoria Park Gardens. This isn't often feasible, however, during the winter, with all the wind and wet that accompanies it, so I have to take advantage of nice mornings whenever the Mighty Whatnot sees fit to provide us with them.
Well, I made a huge mistake this week. Tuesday and Wednesday were both brilliantly sunny and mild, and yet I spent those two mornings at the cafe. Before leaving work on Thursday, I decided to spend time in the park at Millbank. It so happens that Thursday morning was grey, dreary, raw and windy. I spent forty-five minutes on that bench, determined to tough it out because that's the type of dragon I am. But, damn!
I consulted weather.com as soon as I got home, and my jaw dropped. The outside temperature was 50. "Fifty!" I exclaimed to the empty bedroom. The morning felt like it barely passed for 40.
Today, it's brilliantly sunny again. Because it's Saturday I didn't have to kill any time, so I left work straightaway to meet the wife and do some grocery shopping. Standing outside the supermarket with our bags and waiting for the bus, I felt as if I could have stood there in short-sleeves. It felt that warm. Guess what weather.com had to report when I got home? Fifty-two degrees. Only slightly milder than two mornings ago, and yet it feels like summer!
I remember standing outside on the first sunny day after the Blizzard of '05 (I was in Boston at the time). I was throwing shelled peanuts at the squirrels scurrying across the snow in the backyard and standing in short-sleeves. It was 33 degrees out. This was after days of heavy cloud, heavy wind and, of course, heavy snow. I could have set up a lawnchair and sipped a mint julep while trying to bounce peanuts off the squirrels' noggins.
The morale of this long-ass story? The sun really does make a difference. Winter is never as awful when the sun shines in all its glory.