walking in sunshine

This week I have been forced to endure the worst of Newcastle weather.  It totally sucks sometimes.  All the locals complain about how cold it is.  Not me.  I love it cold.  What I hate is rain, rain and more rain blown about in great heavy curtains that create a roaring darkness, force cars to drive very slowly, car parks to fill up early and umbrellas to blow inside out.

But yesterday and today, thank goodness, have been sunny, sunny, sunny!  Yes!  

Lately I’ve been travelling to and from work in the dark.  Bring on the longer daylight hours I say.  So when yesterday decided to be sunny; rather than drive to work as usual, I caught the ferry.  Then, wearing my trusty Asics, I walked 35 minutes from the ferry terminal to work yesterday morning.  The walk follows a wide pathway along the waterfront of Newie’s working port.  It.  Was.  Beautiful.  Soul-refreshing.  

There’s something about being in the sun that does you good.  I know it’s good from a Vitamin D perspective (and that’s ‘vitamin’ with a long ‘i’ as in ‘vy-tamin’ – not that stupid way of saying it like ‘vitta-min’).  But sunshine makes you feel good.  Like, glad to be alive.  I knew immediately that I stepped out into the sun that I’d done the right thing.  It was fresh, and the sun was on my back, and I was breathing fresh air and walking along feeling fully alive.

Sunshine does something with the happy chemicals in your brain – serotonin and melatonin.  It stimulates these so you will sleep well at night and feel happier.

I enjoyed it so much yesterday, we got up early this morning, after a great sleep, and went out for breakfast and then did a long walk in the sun again along the water!  How lovely.  After a week of horrible weather, dark days and miserableness, a walk in the sun is therapy for the soul.   What a pleasure.