wow factor

This morning it's -4c in Canberra. Cold enough to focus my mind on how warm our new house might be in comparison to our current renter.

All houses in Canberra must have an Energy Efficiency Rating (EER) and it's astonishing how many properties are so inefficient.

The house we rent has a score of 1, the house we are buying has a score of 3.5

What that means in potential energy dollar savings....

We can easily achieve a score of 5 simply by installing drapes with pelmets and sealing door gaps on 3 doors.

In an age of Global Warming and diminishing resources I'm stunned that the National Capital of Australia is commissioning a new Power Generation Plant worth millions instead of providing a retrofit service for current houses.

After living in Canberra for a year we decided to buy a house.

We have spent every weekend, for months, looking at properties and ended up with a pretty good handle on the market. We trimmed our wish list, maximised our priorities and set a nominated distance from Louie's school and the center of the city.

At the same time we put our Queensland home on the market. It was listed for 2 days and sold to the first person who saw it. Settlement is on the 21st July

This weekend we also made a successful offer on a house in Canberra.
400 meters from Louie's Primary School and public transport plus it's only 9 kilometers from the city center.

The hassle of selling and buying at the same time is that the complexity of the high wire real estate game is doubled.

• 4 sets of Lawyers
• 4 sets of Banks
• 2 sets of Real Estate Agents
• 2 sets of local Governments
• 2 sets of State Government

etc etc. While all parties are acting with extreme good will, the odds of a cock up still seems pretty high!

Will keep you posted on how it all turns out.

Today we visited Turner to Monet.

Five rooms featuring works by the great landscape artists of the 19th century.
The experience left me calm, surprised, inspired and enriched.

Constable, Roberts, Streeton, Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Pissarro, Turner and many others...

Congratulations NGA

This weekend I'm visiting the Turner to Monet exhibition.

The following will no doubt effect my appreciation.....

Record price for Monet at auction - ABC News

A masterpiece by French impressionist Claude Monet sold for $US41.4 million ($AU43.6 million) at auction in New York overnight

Click the image for a larger popup.

Monet - Le Pont Du Chemin De Fer A Argenteuil

In a well planned show of love for China, thousands of Chinese students descended on Canberra with a simple objective... drown out any pro Tibet activity.

This was not a spontaneous outpouring of Olympic love.

I drove she who knows best to work in the city at 7 am and watched organised groupings marching to their designated locations along the torch relay route.

China has a frail sense of confidence if it still believes sheer numbers are the solution to their issues.

At least they had no counter to the sky writer slowly composing Free Tibet across the blue morning sky.

Click the image for a larger popup.

Image source: ABC News News coverage: ABC News