A perfect day..

So yesterday was a bit wet and miserable. The weather is a bit of a focus for us at the moment, as it is unbelievably cold at nights. My boss Rudy reckoned that this would be one of the coldest winters we had ever experienced… and coming from Scotland I had a good old laugh.

oh boy was he right.

The problem is that Australian houses are built to get rid of heat in the summer. They have white painted walls, tiled surfaces, overhanging roofs to shade the windows.. and not a stick of insulation.

Houses built in the last few years are starting to get (some) insulation – nobody has double glazing, as it’s only needed for sound proofing.. and folks get around it in the winter months by blasting on the gas fires, electric heaters and wood stoves.

I guess the whole idea of building a passive insulated house with decent thermal management to keep the heat in during winter and keep the cold air in during summer will start to kick in as fuel prices continue to rise.. but for this year, in our rented house…

brrr.

We have a couple of DeLonghi dragon electric heaters to keep the bedroom warm, but it’s like being back at our crappy flat in Motherwell. All of the folks we speak to have a little chortle, and say something along the lines of ‘wait till summer…’

That being said – today has been delicious. we nipped out to the local IGA (independent growers of australia – like Spar) to grab some bacon and rolls.. had a delicious breakfast sitting out on the deck… pottered around the house doing some weeding, put the pool cover back on (we had to leave it off for a couple of days, as the chlorine was a bit high), and settled down a lazy afternoon in the hot tub.

Nothing quite like a soak in the hot tub, couple of bottles of cider and just putting the world’s wrongs to right.. the suns just at that lovely ‘last light of the day’ stage just now – everything’s golden orange and yellow.. in fact, here’s a quick photo of the view from my desk – this is looking towards the edge of Joondalup.

So, settling down to read a book and generally chill before dinner. It’s days like this that just make you hapy to be alive 🙂