My Mum Doesn’t Have A Job, She Has An Adventure (operating a coffee van from a five year old’s point of view)

Sorry it’s been a while but life has been busy, and tackling it as a spoonie is certainly a challenge, but challenge accepted! Miss 5 is fond of telling me I don’t have a job, I’m really starting to understand why she thinks that way; operating the coffee van is an adventure, and certainly in the eyes of a five year old. 
Another lot of school holidays meant opportunity for our coffee van at another local dance Eisteddfod, this time at Kernot Hall in Morwell. I mostly tackled this job solo; it was a morning gig in the middle of winter with most of the mornings that week falling below zero! Anyone guess why I didn’t have any takers for my co-pilot? LOL. However, the final night was a gala event and our van was invited to vend. Miss 5 joined me and had a ball rugged up in the cockpit of our van with her blankies, the iPad, some hot chocolate and a badass cookie from Big Daddy’s Sweet Treats. Despite the cold I enjoyed the week and was delighted to have some repeat customers from the Moe Dance Eisteddfod that was our first gig during the previous school holidays.
  
Miss 5 also got to enjoy the EID Festival at Old Gippstown in Moe. While I made coffee and got to give our new specialty teas a good road test, Miss 5 enjoyed the rides, show bags, food, and other festivities that the day had to offer, including getting a henna tattoo (she was rapt). 

The adventure continues as we score an invitation to vend at the Phillip Island Airport. In one day Miss 5 scored three helicopter rides! The staff at Phillip Island Helicopters are very friendly people, just beautiful, it’s a pleasure to vend there. 

  
So yes, Miss 5’s Mum doesn’t have a job, she has an adventure. 

New Products!

  OMG! So many new products to get excited about! 
Firstly for our tea lovers we have three new specialty blended teas from our friends at Noveltea. Black Vandal is a blend of black tea with apple, cinnamon, and fig. Green Vandal is a blend of green tea with liquorice, cinnamon, and chamomile. Red Vandal is a blend of Rooibos tea with cacao, cinnamon, and lavender. These teas are now stocked in addition to our usual English Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Green Tea.

This winter has called for a warm kick, so we have added Chilli Hot Chocolate to our range of hot chocs. Caramel Hot Chocolates have been proving popular of late also. 

We also have Turmeric Lattes that are divinely tasty as well as healthy, with coconut milk. And for diehard green tea lovers, our Matcha Latte is worth a try.

We have been stocking the divinely evil cookies of Big Daddy’s Sweet Treats recently, so we decided to use them to create our new Cookie Shake… For our sweetest of sweettoothes.

We are available for functions, markets, business and home deliveries. Call us on 0447 367 182 or email us at coffeevandal@gmail.com. 

Regatta & Put Your Foot Down

We were fortunate enough recently to have taken our coffee van to the Albert Park Lake Masters Regatta. What a gorgeous setting! What the day taught us though is that there is a big difference between the orders of city people to country people. It seems that city people prefer there coffees in small to medium sized cups as opposed to the preference for medium to large in the country. Also country people like their hot chocolate whereas city people don’t seem to ask for it.

The view we had at the Regatta was beautiful too…

   
 
It’s hard to think of it as work when you get to work in such beautiful settings.

Later on we got the opportunity to work the van at the Put Your Foot Down Walk which was a fundraiser for the Avner Pancreatic Cancer Foundation. Celebrity MasterChef George Calombaris made an appearance and I got to make him a macchiato! All up it was a great day, and the sea of purple made for some lovely pictures…

   
 
Because these two events were fundraisers, we made a donation from our takings for the day. It’s a great feeling to be able to help out charities and to be able to give back to the community where we can… and we had fun doing it. 

The Adventure Begins

What a whirlwind first month it has been as we launched and hit the ground running with our new endeavour- our coffee van, officially known as Coffee Vandal, but affectionately known to my daughter and I as our Slushiest. Having worked in food and beverage service previously, I expected the smell of freshly ground coffee to eventually make me nauseated, but so far that sweet aroma that greets my nostrils as I climb into my van each morning is still homely and comforting, and helps me be calm and tackle the day ahead without stress and anxiety. 

Already our adventures in the coffee van have taken us to beautiful places and allowed us to see some fun an exciting things… Well for my husband and daughter anyway, I always have my back to the action making coffees, teas and hot chocolates to warm the bellies of the crowds who have gathered at the event we are vending at. I don’t mind though, I’m just happy to be working again and even more happy to be doing it with my family. 

Over Easter we were fortunate enough to have our coffee van and the Buchan Rodeo and Gymkhana. This was a wonderful experience for us, it provided us with our first real busy work, gave my five year old an opportunity to be up close with horses and cowboys, and to have her first taste of entrepreneurship by asking customer to “give me your cash” which she then took to the till and tried to work out the change… she didn’t like it when people gave the correct weight and didn’t require change. Although I grew up around horses, it gave me the opportunity to learn how to pronounce ‘rodeo’ properly, and it gave me the opportunity to see my husband in a cowboy hat, something I never thought I’d see lol. 

  
The highlights of that Easter weekend for me was eating Wuk Wuk beef jerky, happy coffee customers, and to see my daughter enjoy some quality family time with my in-laws who put us up in nearby Lakes Entrance for the weekend so that we didn’t have to travel back to the Latrobe Valley each day. We are excited at the prospect of working these events again next year. 

  
The adventure continues… 

  
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