Wwoofer - Matthew

Matthew, an upmarket cocktail barman from New York stayed at La Mariais for two weeks and was a whirlwind of energy - he constructed a bamboo trellis, made fabulous vegetarian food, entertained us with his own style of ukeleli playing and singing, helped with earth rendering in the house and dug and planted in the garden .... a true renaissance man for a renaissance project!!

Matthew creates in the kitchen

Matthew spent hours creating wonderful original dishes using mostly produce from the garden here ...



One of his best  - spaghetti squash and green salad
side dishes with sarrasin galettes and a mole sauce ...

Matthew liked to present and explain his dishes to
a captive audience before tucking in .....

A chickpea salad .....

 

Ecoconstruction

Mixing the earth and sand for rendering in the house ...

Bringing the render mix upstairs ...

Applying the 'thermal corrector' mix ...

 Matthew in the Garden

The pièce de resistance ... he built a trellis in the garden using bamboo cut from a friend's forest after browsing some of my books and researching on the internet for ideas ...

His lashing and knot making skills
learned in Scouts as a child finally
came in handy for this project ...

Wow wee ... you don't do things
by halves!!

 

Matthew's leisure time ...

 

Thank you for all the wonderful music ....

Expressing excitement about  his new ponytail ??- a
gift from Lauren and Hannah ...

Hours spent researching recipes,
music and so on .....