Hello honey bunches!

How’ve you been? I hope you’ve had a lovely week. I hope you’re feeling good.

I have news!

In February of this year, about 13 months into the pandemic, the publisher of my book Vantastic, Melissa at Hardie Grant, emailed me to see if I’d be interested in a refresh and a republish. She told me that the pandemic had seen a huge increase in caravan sales and caravan travellers and thought that the timing would be just right.

I remember getting that email so clearly. It was a hot summer’s day and I was picking a crate of tomatoes when I stopped at the end of a row to catch my breath and check my email.

When Melissa’s email arrived I squealed with delight. It made so much sense. Vanlife was booming across the world, the university course I had applied for had been cancelled so I had extra time, and I absolutely loved the thought of giving my book a brand new life.

Melissa promised me we could work on a whole new design with my favourite book designer Michelle Mackintosh, a new cover, an edit of all the old material and as much new stuff as I wanted to write.

Of course I said yes immediately.

Editing the old stuff was interesting. Language and tech and the culture have changed so much in the ten years since we took our trip. And writing the new material was such fun! For most of it we were physically in lockdown here on the farm, but sitting with my computer on my lap I was adventuring all across the globe.

Ahhhhh I’ve been so excited to share that news with you, I’m so happy to be able to talk about it and that it’s almost out there now. I think you guys are going to love it.

I’m absolutely thrilled that my baby book is being birthed into the world all over again. I’m really proud of it and I honestly believe that it’s such a wonderful resource for anyone contemplating buying a van, remodelling a van, planning a road trip, packing a van and taking off on the road, or just dreaming about it. It is packed full to bursting with photos and stories and lists and details and suggestions and anything and everything you could possibly need to make your Vanlife dreams into real life.

It’ll be out in shops in Australia on the 5th of January 2022.

It will be released in the US and Canada on the 8th of February 2022.

And on the 17th of February in the UK and Europe.

Please consider pre-ordering my book by clicking on this link - Vantastic!

Ahhhhh thank you!

In other not so exciting news, much of our past week has been filled with stress and worry. After our family’s amazing anniversary trip away last week, one of my sisters tested positive to Covid. She tested herself before she came away and got a negative result, she tested in the middle of our trip when she woke up feeling a bit off and was negative again, but a few days later when she was feeling even worse she did two positive tests at home and then a positive PCR test.

No one could be more careful than she is, she’s triple vaccinated, she’s always wearing a mask, she’s careful and respectful and she tests often.

Early this week there was about a 60 hour wait for her to get her official results in which time we all held our breath and waited and she grew sicker and sicker .

Eventually she got her positive results and we all rushed to get tested ourselves.

I tested negative at home on Wednesday night and at a clinic on Thursday morning.

So far the rest of our family and close contacts except one have gotten negative results. We’re still waiting on the last one but she’s feeling really well.

I’m sure that by now many of you reading this will have had so many scares and losses and possibly even had the virus itself, but for us this has been the closest it’s come by far. We’ve been so lucky that it hasn’t been passed on but we’ve been terribly worried about our sickie isolating alone. It breaks my heart not to be able to look after her.

Hopefully she’s through the worst now and will continue to improve over the next week until she’s allowed to leave home and come and cuddle our goats, but until then I promised her loads of goat spam.

Here it comes…

Last Wednesday we brought home 8 more goats to join our herd that is now made up of 22 goats and 4 sheep. The new goats are 12 weeks old and beautiful and we are all absolutely smitten. There’s something so healing about a baby.

So far they’ve settled in beautifully - eating, poo’ing and cuddling. They haven’t completely integrated into the main flock yet but they’re traveling close by and I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time.

Finally there’s some visible progress on my Cloudberry tee. If you look to the bottom of the photo and squint your eyes, you might be able to see that I’ve started on the bottom ribbed band. Two more centimetres, then a bind off in pattern. After that I’ll pick the stitches up around the neck, knit them, and then finally onto the sleeves. At the pace I’ve been knitting it’s unlikely I’ll get it off the needles and onto my body this year, but you never know.

A photo for the record of last Friday when Jarrah busked at our local railway station food truck event.

And I guess that’s that for today.

Sending extra love this week to anyone waiting for Covid results to come through, for anyone unwell, for anyone isolating, for anyone frightened, for anyone missing someone, and for anyone who has suffered the loss of a loved one. My heart is with you.

And to you, whether you’re celebrating or not, I hope you have a wonderful sparkly weekend. I hope it’s filled with yummy food, great company, giggles and lots of thoughtfulness and generosity.

Be kind to yourself.

Lots of love, Kate x