Kate Humble on television never fails to lift my spirits. Her wide smile, buoyant curls, infectious enthusiasm - I was delighted to read her latest book and thank Net Galley for enabling me to do so. The title, ‘A Year of Living Simply’ and the subtitle, ‘The Joys of a Life Less Complicated’ are enough in themselves to pique my interest. I was already well-placed to love this book. I did like it. But I didn’t love it. And it didn’t deliver what I’d expected. I didn’t get the chance to read until recently, by which time (as happens) my mood had changed somewhat and I couldn’t really remember why it was I had it. I began to read therefore a little bit grumpily and with unfair expectations that I would be preached at. I’m in two minds about A Year of Living Simply as the timing of it coming out during the Covid19 pandemic is either very appropriate or not depending on how you look at it and I suspect on the state of your mental health as you read it. I had to get over my fear of power tools,” she laughs. “It was a programme so in tune with the book I had just written, about repairing, recycling and finding a new purpose for things.”

Stay up to date with all the news from Kate’s farm, including the latest courses, events, animal arrivals & special offers. I thought I was going to read about someone sharing her experience of her first year "starting a new simple life", sharing her tips, some kinds of "how-to's".Kate Humble’s new book is a lesson in moving on from a tragedy and finding our place in the world’– WOMAN & HOME Her last book, Thinking on My Feet, was shortlisted for both the Wainwright Prize and the Edward Stanford Travel Memoir of the Year. A year of Living Simply by Kate Humble was released in 2020. Where to Find Kate Online Ms Humble is a well-known wildlife (Springwatch) and occasionally farming TV presenter (Lambing Live). She's also done her time as president of the RSPB, the UK's equivalent of the Audubon Society. This means she has gravitas while still being bubbly and enthusiastic, with a delightful girl-next-door aura. She talks well and she writes well. She captures the countryside and her subject matter so that you accompany her on her journeying.

Last great book you readI’m in the middle of Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet. It is, as I expect from her,captivating, haunting and beautiful. I have a garden and we spent a long time creating a vegetable patch, but I didn’t spend enough time in it. I looked at the resources around me and thought ‘how can I use them better in a way that will make me fully happy’? You can feel a bit disconnected and that we are like flotsam and jetsam being cast around.” A Year of Living Simply is the book that will urge you to reflect on the resources you use, re-prioritise what really holds value in your life, and to realise what true happiness really is. It will remind you to appreciate not only the origins of the materials around us, but also their versatility which will inspire readers to discover how to live more simply in their own lives.

If you’re a fan of Kate Humble then buy this book as you will enjoy it. Kate’s writing is open, honest and easy to read. You will learn more about Kate’s ‘off screen’ country life. As a dog owner myself, I enjoyed reading Kate’s country walks with her dogs. I totally identified with the simple pleasure of dog walking. Getting out in the fresh air, enjoying nature and giving yourself some space and a chance to unwind a busy mind. Now that’s simple living. Where to Buy A year of focussing on the issue of living more simply, perhaps. The listing of simple pleasures and pursuits that make a busy life less frenetic, certainly. Life felt more complicated than it needed to be,” she says. “I started out thinking about what I would change, but I realised that a better question to ask is ‘why’ change. When you have the why, it makes the how easier.”

Some of her books are Watching Waterbirds with Kate Humble and Martin McGill: 100 birds … in just one day! (2011), Humble by Nature (2013), and Friend for Life: The Extraordinary Partnership Between Humans and Dogs (2016). It took me a long time to read A Year of Living Simply because I had a considerable amount going on in my life but every time I returned to it I found it complete balm for the soul. It was akin to meeting up with an old friend you haven’t seen for years and yet it’s as if you only saw them a couple of hours ago. And In the same way Kate Humble discovers new skills, I learnt all manner of things from her warm, conversational, humane style. I’m usually sceptical of celebrity endorsements for books, but the comments attached to A Year of Living Simply are absolutely right. It is a treat of a read.It’s full of wisdom and a lot of humour too. The section on finding her husband’s hordes of light bulbs and plaster to last a lifetime and beyond resonated all too much with my own household. Must be a male thing! My husband thinksit’s hilarious thatI’m describedas wholesome,’TV presenterKate Humbletells me with glee,down the phonefrom her farm inWales’s Wye Valley. ‘He’ll say, “Do they know thatyou use the C bomb, all the time?” I’m one ofthose people who will get absolutely furious,often at myself. I break things – including myown hand once smashing a wall – but then it’sdone. I don’t understand anyone who doesn’tlose their s**t every now and again.’

One part I especially loved was her describing Lisa’s reasoning for living in Frome using the ‘jambo’ test. I loved that and will put that to use if ever I move. I can see it working for choosing a church and many other things too! You will have to read the book to learn more about that! It was still quite interesting, as we get to see a lot of different points of view, and read about many things from gardening to cooking bread to building your own house to sewing… What I expected was not what I got. The author enjoyed a break in a remote area of France, so much so, she bought a place there herself. Recently I got very into Kate Humble’s television series Twice the Life for Half the Price. The premise is that families living in urban environments seek out a life in the country that delivers less of the stress of modern life and more of life on the land, for less money or at least relatively less for what they have in return. What distinguishes this programme from others about escaping to the country is that the lives they seek out are real and authentic country lives, rather than chocolate box versions bought out of their appreciated London assets and healthy pension pots. As a result the programme is both more accessible and more satisfying. So when Netgalley and the publishers offered me an early release copy of A Year of Living Simply, I jumped at the chance. A Year of Living SimplyI’d still like to see any city/suburban working mums with kids under ten who can’t disappear off to the country and home-school them take up any of these ideas (other than an allotment). Now that would be a book worth reading*. In this book, Kate shares her journey to find out what it really means to live a simple life. Kate has a busy life, her tv career means that she travels around the country, often away from home for weeks at a time. At the beginning of the book Kate recounts her favourite holiday in the South of France some years previous. In which she stayed in a log cabin with very basic facilities and no technology. Totally isolated, with time to walk, swim in the lake, read, sleep and eat delicious food collected from the local market. Likes: I could hear Kate’s voice and the book encouraged me to think again about my life. I long for simplicity. I liked the way in which the book was organised. I will return to the book and dip in and out.