Jacqui

We first visited Adelaide & Perth end April/beg May. It was slightly warmer in Perth. In both cities it was very pleasantly warm, enough for us to wander around in shorts & t-shirts. Kept getting funny looks from the locals though, all wearing trousers and thick woolly sweaters, some even had thick overcoats and hats on!

The trouble with winters over here, as someone else pointed out, is the houses aren't geared up for it. You all sit shivering around some poxy portable gas heater! You can feel draughts coming in through the single-glazed windows, which are running with condensation in the mornings. In the shops they sell those really old-fashioned sausage dog thingies to put at the bottom of doors. The range of heaters is a joke - it's like visiting a store in the 1970's again. Those 3-bar electric heaters are so dangerous I can't believe people still use them in houses with kids. It must cost a fortune to buy portable electric radiators or electric fan heaters to heat different rooms separately.

We'd love to have ducted gas heating put in, or even radiators if we could find someone to source and install them, but as we're planning to move soon, it's not worth the expense. So we'll be gathered around the one fire again this winter, wearing our brushed cotton pyjamas and thick dressing-gowns and furry slippers!