Our last workaway volunteer adventure was over two years ago in Cambodia. We were baking bagels and quiche for a weekly market, and building furniture out of pallets in 100 degree heat and 80% humidity. Red wanted the next workaway gig to be painting chateaus in France. I warned him that winter wasn’t an ideal time to travel through France, but he was adamant he could brave the cold. 

Our first French property host, Nathalie, escaped England to follow her dream of opening up a holistic, meditation, yoga and pilates centre, that also holds creative workshops and artist residencies. It will also be an amazing place to hold events like weddings and parties, and is already in use as BnB accommodation. The benefit being that Nathalie also offers the option of meals to her guests.

Cooking at the Mill

The meals were one of the highlights of this workaway. Nathalie is a fabulous cook. It’s not just a case of slapping the food on the plate at fuel, she took pride in the presentation of the food and I have a new found passion for endive, blue cheese and walnut salad. I also had cuttlefish for the first time and we ended up having it for times by request. Simply cooked, just coated in flour and sautéed served with lemon. They’re ugly little buggers in the squid and octopus family, but an economical meal at 6 Euro per kilo, which was enough for 2 meals for three of us.

We had a visit to the local supermarket and bought a selection of inexpensive red wine for our stay. At only a few Euro’s a bottle it was difficult to resist the organic selection on offer. 

I made two new dishes I hadn’t made before. The first was a mushroom paté. I have no idea why, but I was fixated on having this and the only pate we could find at the market was duck, so I made our own. Twice. I mixed in some rehydrated dried mushrooms in with the fresh mushrooms, and it was these that gave the paté it’s intense flavor.

I’m a bit of a chutney fiend (it goes well with cheese) and as my usual version with roasted red peppers is such a pain to prepare and make I opted for caramelized onion chutney with sultanas, Indian spices and harissa. I was hoping to take a small jar away traveling with us when we left, but one of our last breakfasts was Welsh Rarebit on crispy baguette with chutney. Delicious. So that was goodbye to the chutney, but it was worth the sacrifice.

Renovating The Mill

The Mill is massive and only a fraction of the building has been renovated. But we had a comfortable and warm bedroom above the kitchen, so we benefited for the heat coming from the wood burner below. We were there for three weeks and did one major renovation job of battening the ceilings between wood beams.

The room had been started but we make real impact by finishing it off. It was tough to get motivated in this room because it was so cold, but each day it was encouraging to track the progress of the day’s activity and to plan out the intent for the following day. 

I mastered the art of the circular table saw and the drill, while Red was up the ladder measuring for each piece and screwing them in place.

The challenge was that each piece had to be individually measured and cut to size because the ceiling beams weren’t straight. It took us a couple of hours to streamline the flow of who was doing what and how to make the process as efficient as possible.

Foraging for Firewood

Other than this insulation job we waterproofed a new log store, and transitioned the wood logs from one side of the building to the other, and spent a few days collecting twigs and logs that had been washed up onto the banks of the river during high tide.

Red did some pointing and painting jobs in rooms on the upper floors, one of them the library.

As well as using one of the Mill’s original flour bag stencils to add some character to the outside of one of the storage areas.

Meanwhile I sat with Nathalie to streamline her accommodation set up on AirBnB and Booking.com, and gave her website an overhaul with new images and content. Here’s a link to the Volunteer page on her website.

This is one of the favourite photos I took of Red during our workaway at The Mill.

What we did on our day’s off

As is usual on workaway gigs, we worked 5 days with 2 days off each week.

Wandering around Saint Georges de Luzeçon

The Mill was located in the small village of Saint Georges de Luzeçon

The first weekend we were both ill with a cold, so we didn’t travel too far afield. I explored Saint Georges then did some cooking, while Red nursed his man-flu in bed.

Day Trip to the Millau Viaduct

The next day the sun was shining so I dragged him out of bed and wrapped him up snugly so that we could explore the Millau Viaduct, a feat of engineering that deserved an up close and personal viewing.

Nathalie dropped us off, but we had to make our own way back to Millau town center to be picked up, and as it was out of season there was no public transport, so we decided to walk the 6 miles into town.

Thankfully it was all downhill, and we rewarded ourselves with a beer and hot meal once we got back to civilization.

The next weekend we went to Montpellier, and at the end of the third week we left to have a couple of days in Clermont-Ferrand before starting our new gig.

Other Local Adventures

Afternoon Trip to the Roquefort Caves

We’d been eating our fair share of the blue cheese, Roquefort, so it seems only natural to explore where it was made and matured.

Being the cheese lovers that we are, we were excited to tour the 12,000m² of caves constructed in the Middle Ages, that are still in use for the ripening of Roquefort AOP Société.

Celebration of the Pig at a local village

Even though we’re pescatarians and don’t eat meat, we jumped at the chance of attending a local pig celebration. Now admittedly we didn’t turn up early enough to watch it being slaughtered and disected to be turned into different pork dishes for dinner, but we got there in time for the bar opening, the band playing, and dinner.

We met a German workawayer who was volunteering at a nearby village, so swapped stories with her before taking to the dance floor to partake in some French country dancing.

We had no idea what was going on, so just took our lead from the locals. The band was really good, and so was the complimentary red wine, so we were some of the last to leave.

1:1 Ceramic Lessons

One of Nathalie’s passions is ceramics and pottery, and there’s a kiln waiting to be plugged in for a test drive. While we were there I had a few evenings making paper porcelain flower, and an evening making molds for another ceramic project. I’ve thrown a pot on a potter’s wheel before, during an one-night class in Los Angeles, and I’ve been waiting for the right opportunity to really get my hands into clay again.

I made a pomegranate out of what I’ll call traditional clay, and then switched to another softer finer clay called paper porcelain.

Nathalie wants to create a collection of blooms to display on a lintel above her front door, so I was excited to be allowed to contribute my blooms to the cause. It was so therapeutic to be sitting in front of the log burner, drinking smooth red wine, and alternating between listening to Sam Garett on You Tube, and alternating chatting with Nathalie. I must admit—not my using listening pleasure, but great non-invasive music to lose yourself in the creative process. Easy on the eyes too!

During our time at The Mill – after the food, the ceramics were my memorable takeaway. Nathalie went out of her way to introduce us to her friends and other local acquaintances, and that gave us a chance to meet a german workawayer in a neighboring village. We sampled local village life and culture, and fed our cheese habit.

This is what workaway is all about, not just working in return for food and board, but becoming part of another person’s dream for a short while, and helping them along their journey. It’s great to get back onto the workaway horse again, and our three weeks there was a good ride.

After our two year break from Workaway, this was an amazing experience to whet our appetite for more … and, it wasn’t that cold.

(As you can tell from our parting photograph, brushing your hair is not a priority when you’re a Workawayer!)

Read about our 2020 Workaway and Travel Adventures:

1. French Train Strikes won’t stop us in our tracks
2. Toodling around Toulouse
3. Exploring the Castle at La Couvertoirade
4. Meandering around Montpellier
5. Our Workaway at an 18th Century Flour Mill
6. Chilling in Clermont Ferrand
7. Our Workaway at an 18th Century Chateau
8. Lingering in Lyon’s 1st Arrondissement
9. Our Self-Guided Walking Tour of Lyon
10. Making the most of Montparnasse Paris
11. Our Workaway at a La Rochelle BnB
12. Our Workaway at Ile D’Aix
13. Video: Our Workaway adventure through France
14. Our Memorable Food and Wine Adventures in France
15. …. the rest of our trip TBD because of the virus – but planning Bordeaux, Lille, Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam