Hameau de la Brousse

Hameau de la Brousse

We’ve moved on to our next WWOOF host after Chateau Lassalle, after we said goodbye yesterday morning to the Cutts family in Aignan. It’s never easy to go after sharing peoples’ lives for a couple of weeks, doing the dishes, dealing with cranky kids, enjoying good meals and staying up too late, worrying about the weather… but we consoled ourselves with the thought that we’ll be back in the Gers in a few years, hopefully.

Steve took us to the train for what was for us a very easy 3 hours of train travel from Mont de Marsan to Bordeaux to Angouleme. Helene picked us up and ran some errands with us in the car and then we came back to Hameau de la Brousse, which is out in the rolling countryside very near the border between the Charente and the Dordogne. Hameau means hamlet, and this hamlet, a group of houses and barns, is owned entirely by three artists who have slowly renovated the whole place into houses, a gite, artist studios, performance spaces, etc. There is a huge garden and a park area in which there is a sort of natural amphitheatre, a river, a pond, limestone cliffs, and old quarrying caves that go into the cliffs. We’re out in the middle of nowhere and don’t mind at all, it’s so interesting.

There is quite a community of people here, several other WWOOFers, all younger than us of course, one from Austria, one from Japan, one from Norway, one from Belgium, a couple of friends of the owners, some paying guests, a resident artist, all of whom add up to a lot of mouths to feed. But with so many WWOOFers we get a lot done and the dishes don’t take too long. Things are surprisingly clean and organized for a place that gets so much traffic in the kitchen – this must be due to Helene and Michel’s skill at making lists of things for their WWOOFers to do immediately after breakfast. They are easy going and friendly and also organized and efficient – which is great, because it means meals are on time and the bed sheets are clean.

We’re eating very well – all the food appears to be organic and so far it’s been vegetarian although I’m told that only one of the WWOOFers is vegetarian. Last night it was sautéed carrots, millet mixed with bulgur, dandelion salad with vinaigrette, and strawberries and cream for dessert. Lunch today was scalloped squash, dandelion salad, leftover bulgar/millet, cheese, and more strawberries. And dinner this evening, spicy red beans and squash, rice, dandelion salad, and even more strawberries with cream. And always lots of sourdough bread and butter. And no, I’m not tired of the strawberries yet – they are fabulously fresh and delicious, straight from the garden. Helene isn’t tired of the strawberries either, tonight I saw her brazenly licking her plate after she’d eaten her dessert. Everyone rushed off after dinner to the theatre event happening down in the hameau’s park, something about “And Zeus created his woman…” but Reed was tired enough that he took himself to bed to read so I stayed in the room with him to help him get showered and ready to sleep. He’s having to adjust to being the only child again after having Ella to play with for the last two weeks. But there are plenty of friendly cats, a couple of dogs, and some chickens that he can visit with, and an amazing amount of really varied and interesting outdoor space complete with sculptures, caves, woods, stone steps, and numerous paths to follow. You can visit the website by clicking on the title of this post above.