Today marks five years I’ve been living in Canberra. In 2007 I moved here from Darwin after living there since February 1996.

If you follow me on Twitter or you’re a Facebook friend you’ll know my natural habitat is any place that is warm and moist. I like living in warm humid small friendly cities. Having grown up in Brisbane (not that Brisbane is small, it’s larger than all the capitals in Australia in terms of geography), I reckon if you can survive a February and March you can live in any humid city.

Canberra is not warm and moist. Canberra is friendly but it is mostly cold and dry. I’ve lived with very dry skin all my life as well as allergic rhinitis. A dry climate is not a natural habitat for me without pain and discomfort, and medication and bucket loads of moisturiser.

Aside from the weather, Canberra is a good place to live. It’s small, it’s almost rural, it’s designed and best of all the people are friendly. Not Darwin friendly mind you, but pretty friendly. I like that as the national capital we have Eastern Grey kangaroos living all around us as well as foxes, wombats and echidnas. Having had the opportunity to visit cities like Washington DC, London and Ottawa, Canberra is not an architecturally grand or even beautiful city. It doesn’t have the capital feel that Washington DC and London have. None of that matters though, it’s our capital. More people should visit Canberra to see what goes on and then go and visit Darwin and Brisbane and far north Queensland to warm up and see really beautiful parts of the best country in the world.

So how much longer can I live here? I like my job, I like my friends here, but I don’t like the weather.

I like that one twitter follower once called me Canberra’s eating machine. That will do me