Having lived in England for quite a few years now, there’s one thing that never ceases to amaze me. We treat sunshine here like a visiting celebrity. Not the kind that shows up reliably for scheduled appearances, but the eccentric, brilliant one who might (or not) grace us with their presence.
If the mood strikes them just right.

Yesterday was one of those days, where the sun decided to make an appearance – a proper one, mind you, not those half-hearted glimpses we’ve been taunted with for months. You know the type: those teasing moments when it peers through the clouds just long enough for you to consider removing a layer before retreating again, leaving you awkwardly holding your jacket in public. Honestly, talk about feeling betrayed.

Courtesy of my sleep patterns (or rather lack of), I watched it happen in the morning. The first proper sunshine in what feels like the longest winter.

By 9 AM, the neighbourhood transformed from a sensible collection of houses into what could only be described as a mass audition for “People who suddenly remembered they have a garden.” The speed at which garden furniture appeared was nothing short of miraculous. Dusty barbecues emerged from sheds like hibernating creatures sensing spring, despite the fact that it’s barely warm enough to consider cooking outdoors without wearing gloves.

The thing about English sunshine is that it operates on a strange economy of urgency. The less reliable it is, the more desperately we must consume it. I found myself standing in my kitchen, a half-eaten piece of toast in hand, staring accusingly at my indoor tasks. How dare they demand my attention when there are approximately 4.7 hours of sunshine to be absorbed? The audacity of laundry to exist on such a day.

It’s a complicated relationship I have with the sun now. Having grown up under the relentless Middle Eastern and Indian skies, where sunshine wasn’t so much a visitor as an overbearing relative who refused to leave, I once knew a different sun entirely. A sun that had us creating elaborate systems of shade, seeking refuge indoors during its most tyrannical afternoon hours, treating its appearance with respectful wariness rather than celebration. The sun I knew before England was a sun that could burn and blister, that made metal car door handles too hot to touch, that turned pavements into frying pans. (Yes, we’ve tried making eggs on them. Didn’t quite work out – but it was close)

And yet here I am, transformed by years of English weather, standing with my face tilted upward like a desperate sunflower, soaking in rays that my former self would have hidden from. How quickly we adapt, how easily we forget when the thing we once had in abundance becomes scarce. I’ve become a sunshine convert, a seasonal worshipper at the temple of good weather, just like my neighbours.

We become different people in the sunshine, don’t we? People who suddenly believe that sitting on uncomfortable blankets is preferable to perfectly good chairs. People who will eat sandwiches with a light dusting of grass and call it “refreshing.” The same people who would send back coffee for being too cold will happily drink warm beer from a plastic cup because it’s sunny and therefore everything is wonderful.

I watched a man in shorts today. Not remarkable in warmer countries, I realise, but this was a man who had made a decision and stuck with it. And I applaud his bravado. The temperature was maybe 15 degrees, but sunshine had been forecast, and so the shorts were worn with the conviction of someone who refuses to acknowledge goosebumps. And he walked with the confidence of someone strolling along a Mediterranean boardwalk.

The parks today looked like someone had scattered human confetti across the grass. (Note – not human remains, actual humans). Every patch of green space suddenly valuable real estate, claimed with blankets and cool boxes like some polite version of territorial marking. We sat shoulder to shoulder with strangers, all of us pretending we had adequate personal space while silently calculating how many more people could reasonably fit before the experience became too authentically continental.

And the conversations – how wonderfully predictable we are. “Lovely day, isn’t it?” becomes not just a greeting but a philosophical statement, an acknowledgment of shared joy, a tiny celebration of collective weather fortune. We say it to everyone: neighbours, shopkeepers, completely random people at bus stops. The sunshine makes us briefly, gloriously sociable.

What’s most endearing is the optimism. The way ice cream vans appear from nowhere, the sudden proliferation of sunglasses perched hopefully on heads, the garden centers packed with people buying plants that may well experience snow before the month is out. We know, deep down, that this might be it – our one allocated day of proper sunshine for weeks – but we commit to summer with our whole hearts anyway.

To everyone who rearranged their day completely because the sun came out, who dusted off picnic baskets and blankets, who sat outside despite being slightly cold but refused to admit it, and especially to those of us who once knew a different relationship with the sun altogether but have been converted to this peculiar Western sun-worship: I see you, fellow sunshine hostages, waiting for permission from the sky to live our outdoor lives. And my goodness, isn’t it glorious when that permission is finally granted?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

PS: The laundry refused to wait btw. If you’ve been in England, you’ll know why. Turns out it wanted some of that sunshine action too