Accommodation vacant

We rolled into familiar territory this evening . . . Canberra, our home for more than 20 years and home still for our children and grandchildren. And so it's out of the shorts and T-shirts and back into the long trousers and sweaters. The temperature right now is 4.3C, with -1 forecast overnight. Not far away, in the High Country skifields, snow has been falling heavily. Hard to believe we're in the same country where, in the Whitsundays only four days ago, I was lolling on the beach in 26C. But that's Australia. It's a vast and climatically diverse piece of land.

The "accommodation" in my quick-drive-past blip is, strictly speaking, not vacant. It is the official residence of the Australian Prime Minister, and remains for the moment the home of Labor leader Kevin Rudd - who is out on the hustings. The probability is (if the trend in opinion polls is to be believed), that he will have to vacate it after the Federal Election on September 7, and hand over the keys to the conservative Coalition leader, Tony Abbott.

am looking. Honest.]