2-7 July
Just a name before. Now a whole world. Massive country but with lots of interesting detail. Le Trièves. I’ve included loads of photos on the grounds that this is not a well-known part of France Grenoble
Claude lives in a hamlet called Cornillon-en-Trièves, nearest station Clelles, nearest town, Mens. His apartment is in the Mairie, which is open twice a week for several hours - in this little hamlet with no shops or other facilities. He has the most wonderful dog, Nino, who accompanies him everywhere. Claude is establishing an organic nursery about 10km away. This is where I picked shallots, turnips and raspberries one afternoon for the people he shares the land with. They sell the (organic) veges at the market and make the fruit into jam, also sold at the market. 
The land and their house are behind what they call the Baraque des Bourgeois, the dump belonging to the rich people – an enormous house with a swimming pool, used by a Parisian family who come down for a while in the summer. Fortunately it has enormous cool, dark storage areas underneath, which are ideal for turnips over the summer, for example. They will sell some each week.
Claude took me to all the local places, as the hamlet is isolated if you have no transport. Mens has a small museum, with a mixture of interesting offerings. The photos I’ve included are of early tools and a model of the typical farmhouses of the region. I also walked around Mens, both in the central area, near the fountains and covered market, and on the edges where there are more modern ‘suburbs’. The unusually shaped jutting-out roof has a pulley suspended from the top, which is how they got the hay up there, and the houses also have a typical form on the wall just under the roof, which serves as insulation and to keep the birds out. There’s a photo of that too. It is made of tiles and painted.
Just a name before. Now a whole world. Massive country but with lots of interesting detail. Le Trièves. I’ve included loads of photos on the grounds that this is not a well-known part of
I want to acknowledge the extreme kindness of my host, Claude, a friend of a friend, who by email offered me a tent at the end of his garden, which sounded like a dream, and the use of his facilities. But this summer has been really unpredictable, and instead of the usual stable fine weather, each night it looked as if it might rain, and Claude slept on a small mattress on his kitchen floor while giving me his bed. I really do hope he comes back to New Zealand
Claude lives in a hamlet called Cornillon-en-Trièves, nearest station Clelles, nearest town, Mens. His apartment is in the Mairie, which is open twice a week for several hours - in this little hamlet with no shops or other facilities. He has the most wonderful dog, Nino, who accompanies him everywhere. Claude is establishing an organic nursery about 10km away. This is where I picked shallots, turnips and raspberries one afternoon for the people he shares the land with. They sell the (organic) veges at the market and make the fruit into jam, also sold at the market. 
The land and their house are behind what they call the Baraque des Bourgeois, the dump belonging to the rich people – an enormous house with a swimming pool, used by a Parisian family who come down for a while in the summer. Fortunately it has enormous cool, dark storage areas underneath, which are ideal for turnips over the summer, for example. They will sell some each week.
I was really keen to see La Terre Vivante, a organic gardening centre, which is not far from Mens. I’ll deal with that separately, for the gardeners amongst you, but I spent an entire afternoon there, wandering around my past (the gardening part -grandfather, father, aunts and ourselves) and the future – reticulation of water, insulation of houses, generation and use of energy.
One evening we had a real barbeque at a friend’s place – an English girl called Naomi who works at La Terre Vivante and her French husband or companion, Sam. It was great out in this massive scenery, in the setting sun (I gather the sun can set twice at their place, as it moves out from behind the hill it had set behind!). Thanks, Naomi! I even did a crumble as an offering, using organic nectarines and apricots and flakes of 5 grains, also organic. Naomi and Sam have done a fabulous job of Stage 1 restoration/refitting of an old stone house and are part way through stage 2. I hope to see it in its finished state one day.
I enjoyed walking around the hamlet of Cornillon-en-Trièves, which has its own little chateau with chapel. In the far distance there were always alps or the last line of pre-alps while the areas I walked in were extremely varied, from cereals ready to be cut (over-ready, some of them), to maize only just started, grass to cut or already sitting in rolls in the paddocks, green forested tracks like the ones near Françoise’s in Brittany and open roads, really old houses and farms in various states of repair and brand new ones, with a regional touch to them.
Claude took me to all the local places, as the hamlet is isolated if you have no transport. Mens has a small museum, with a mixture of interesting offerings. The photos I’ve included are of early tools and a model of the typical farmhouses of the region. I also walked around Mens, both in the central area, near the fountains and covered market, and on the edges where there are more modern ‘suburbs’. The unusually shaped jutting-out roof has a pulley suspended from the top, which is how they got the hay up there, and the houses also have a typical form on the wall just under the roof, which serves as insulation and to keep the birds out. There’s a photo of that too. It is made of tiles and painted.
I seem to have neglected to photograph the café that we went to on several occasions, with people from Terre Vivante, where Claude used to work. It was a lovely old café (early XVIII) which had paintings dating from the end of the 19th century on the walls and cherubins on the ceiling. You could sit outside instead and watch the world go by, especially lots of combined-harvesters (moissonneuse-batteuse in case you’ve always wanted to know) going along the narrow road the days I was there.
Anyway, let the photos speak, I say.
Photos at:
