If the year ended before summertime, yesterday could be described as one of the most beautiful days of the year. The sky was the blue one dreams of, the birds were hovering dangerously close to annoying, though beautiful, and there was something new in the air--enough to bring anyone out of depression for an afternoon.

My colleagues at work, and I, stood out on our terrace soaking up the very essence of "end of winter" and it was hard to keep focused on the screen/task at hand. Who wanted to be working when the sun was shining full force? And then we fought against the sun coming in through our vertical blinds. Who wants to force out the sun when it's what you've been waiting for for weeks on end?

But naturally we adjusted the blinds, taped it to parts of the wall, etc, just too either keep us from staring or to keep us task-minded.

The ride home was just as nice as the day had been. I peeled off my winter coat and stuffed it into my bike-basket, with just a jumper on (jumper is Eva English for jacket/sweater). Now I know it sounds like I'm exaggerating, but on my 20 minute, leisurely ride home (yes, I've been known to make it at heart-attack speed in only 9 minutes) it seemed almost everyone was hurrying home so they could marvel at the temperature of the evening. And around nearly every trash bin, there seemed to be an umbrella.

Not the sort of umbrella one would expect next to a trash bin, not all wires or overextended, or handles-missing...not tattered cloth or any obvious fault of the umbrella, but the working kind. The sort we all have in the back of our closets. Maybe there were a few ones with faulty joints in the ribbing, but it seemed to me that there were dozens.

I imagined the scenario, old ladies with plastic rain bonnets and couples crouched together abandoning their umbrellas. Some seemed placed beside the bins, others more forcefully rooted, regardless, it seemed everyone had had enough of this dismal weather business, it was spring.