I am alone in the farmhouse. I know I am alone. The farmer left an hour ago. I saw his car disappear along the drive, past the linden trees, over the stream and round the corner into the forest. When I walk down to the kitchen the dog is fast asleep on the mat in front of the fire. The cats are still out hunting. It is 7am.
I brew coffee and sit at the long wooden table. The dog stirs and moves over to lean his great bulk against my leg. Maybe he, too, is feeling the isolation. The clock ticks denting the silence.
I open the door onto the terrace and walk outside. There is a promising crimson glow behind the mountains. A silhouette of trees decorates the horizon. In the valley a grey mist hangs like a shadow. Everything is dripping as if someone is trying to fold tissue paper quietly.
This is the Cevennes, a remote area of southern France. It is a place where tourists patter rather than tramp; where you can think and walk and find a different rhythm of life. Head two hours west of Avignon, climb the winding roads into the mountains and you can walk all day without seeing another soul. No sound of traffic, just the crack of a twig breaking beneath your boot and the trickling of water in the streams.
The Cevennes National Park is the country’s largest wooded national park where golden eagles soar, rock roses and orchids bloom and the most handsome stags in France are found.
Flocks of sheep roam the limestone plateau of the Great Causses in the west with its Atlantic climate, while in the forested eastern Cevennes, the climate becomes Mediterranean as the altitude decreases. Cattle graze on the slopes and sheep are still taken up to high summer pastures. Then to complete the unspoilt landscape, there are river valleys, gorges, grottos and caves.
I am here for two weeks to improve my French and help with the garden.
It turns out that it’s just me and the farmer, Bernard. Bernard’s wife left for a retreat the day before I arrived and will return after I have left. But she is here in spirit. Her messages are all around – on the front door knocker, on the fridge, on the kitchen cupboards. “Who am I today and what grand and glorious adventure will I have.” Another says: “How does it get better than this?” So why did she go I wonder.
I spend the morning cutting lavender. It is like cutting hair, snipping and shaping with scissors. The aroma is intense and hovers over me. Bernard returns late morning and cooks lunch, a soufflé of spinach and cheese and an endive salad.
The promise of good weather does not materialise. Squalls of rain chase in from the south. Great black clouds shroud the hills. Later in the afternoon it clears a little and I take the dog for a walk. We meander through woods along terraced pathways which drop away steeply down ravines to clear streams. It is autumn. The leaves are curled and crisp like burnt toast.
The pathways are covered with spiky shells, like tiny curled hedgehogs, mouths open, spilling out the shiny brown nuts. Sweet chestnut groves cling onto steep slopes.
This sparsely populated areas of France with remote farmhouses and crumbling stone ruins hidden in greenery, has a history of isolation and poverty which has driven the people of these mountains to self sufficiency. Every house has its vegetable garden, often on a shelf of land cut from the hillside.
Man has shaped the landscape over centuries building tiers and terraces and planting trees. Monks played their part too with self sufficiency based on the sweet chestnut, orchards, kitchen gardens, goats, sheep, hens and bees. The sweet chestnut or bread tree as it is known in the Cevennes, has dominated the landscape and sustained generations of people.
It is a land steeped in tradition with a way of life shaped by the environment. It is a special area where old customs and skills have survived over the centuries.
It has a permanence about it which feeds the soul and makes me strong. I know it will draw me back to discover more of its past and enjoy its peaceful present. And maybe next time I will meet the farmer’s wife.
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