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Share skills and experience country life in Audembert, France

Availability

  2025 

 Min stay requested: at least 3 weeks

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Details

  • Description

    Description

    *** Looking for a couple from July 17th to August 7th ***

    Hello kind stranger!

    Our names are Claire and Michiel, we're a young Franco-Belgian family living on an old farmstead near the coast of Wissant, North of France. For 7 years now we are bringing the old farmhouses back to life, while also bringing up our two daughters: Fleur (4yo) and Perle (2yo). We've been hosts on WorkAway since 2020 and we love the life that a group of volunteers brings to our place. Making you discover French culture, nature and the sea helps us to enjoy it even more ourselves. Teaching French and picking up on your languages widens our world view and help our kids to be future globetrotters - like you! The different nationalities we're welcoming make us feel like travelling the world while staying at home. Every day we're hosting, it widens our horizon and gives us love, laughter and friendship.

    So far we've made an old stable into our home, we've renovated a 'longère' (long farmbuilding) into a woodworker's workshop, our workshop and office space, we've landscaped the courtyard and made a vegetable garden and greenhouse. We did most of this with friends, family and volunteers, it's been a wonderful adventure to share with so many different people! Last year we've transformed a former horse stable into a small house for volunteers, so our accomodation is comfortable now. This year we will continue maintaining the vegetable garden while also doing projects at the house.

    We're welcoming help repairing the house. With previous groups we've redone the outside of the house, next up is the inside! If you're motivated, we can teach you some basic carpentry, stone masonry and making and applying traditional chalk-hemp insulation on the walls.
    We'll also welcome help maintaining the family vegetable garden, harvesting and conserving (and tasting!) our vegetables and trimming our hedges. The animals will also need to be fed. We have chickens and bunnies at the moment, we also have sheep but they only need feeding in winter. We may also ask you to keep our daughters happy while we're outside doing projects :)

    In what's left of 2025, we're almost continuously hosting 6 people. We have availabilities left in the following timeframes:
    - July 17th until August 7th: 2 places, looking for a couple
    - August 21st until November 6th: 2-4 spots available
    In 2026, we'll be hosting from Januari 15th onwards.

    If you'd decide to come and live with us for a few weeks, we'd be very happy and eager to get to know you! We have quite some experience in hosting our friends, WorkAwayers and helpers from other sites, people say we're very hospitable :) So far we've hosted 131 volunteers from 28 different nationalities, and that's not counting those who came a second or third time. Each and every one was an unforgettable experience!

    We love hosting people and look forward to meeting you!
    Claire and Michiel, Fleur and Perle

  • Types of help and learning opportunities

    Types of help and learning opportunities

    Gardening
    DIY and building projects
    Babysitting and creative play
    Help around the house
    General Maintenance
  • Interests

    Interests

    Van life
    LGBTQ
    Events & social
    Music
    Gardening
    DIY & crafts
    Cooking & food
    Carpentry
    Animals
    Architecture
    Outdoor activities
    Cycling
    Beach
  • UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

    UN sustainability goals this host is trying to achieve

    UN goals
    No poverty
    Zero hunger
    Good health and well-being
    Quality education
    Gender equality
    Clean water and sanitation
    Affordable and clean energy
    Decent work and economic growth
    Industries, innovation and infrastructure
    Reduce inequality
    Sustainable cities and communities
    Responsible consumption and production
    Climate action
    Life below water
    Life on land
    Peace, justice and strong institutions
    Partnerships for the goals
  • Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

    Cultural exchange and learning opportunities

    In your spare time, you may go for long walks on the beach or on the countryside with a view of the English coast across the channel. There's a lot of museums in the region as well, mostly dedicated to WW2 or the sea and sealife.

    Claire is a musician (voice, guitar and violin) and plays in a band. They have a concert about once a month, it's always a lot of fun. If you're also a musician, it would be lovely to play together!

    We always try to have 4 to 6 volunteers present, so you won't only pick up un French culture and language but also on the other nationalities present. We've hosted 26 different nationalities so far!

  • Projects involving children

    Projects involving children

    This project could involve children. For more information see our guidelines and tips here.

  • Help

    Help

    For those with green fingers there's our biological vegetable garden to maintain, transforming and conserving vegetables, a few overgrown hedges to be trimmed, wood to be chopped as well as feeding our chickens and caring for our sheep.
    It's an amazing experience to see how much pride our volunteers take in the tasks they accomplish, learning and doing things they don't do in their daily life. Empowering you to surpass yourself is something we really like to do.

    This summer we'll start doing tasks on the house, the tasks on hand will depend on the status of our projects. We can tell you the specific things we'll be helping with in your requested timeframe. DIY experience is not a requirement, but being curious and wanting to learn is ;)
    In the first weeks we'll be taking out some wood and repairing the walls. After that we'll do a 'chantier participatif' to insulate the walls with traditional chalk/hemp insulation. There's some lifting as well as light tasks, so anyone should find what suits them! In any case, we'll never ask you to do tasks that you don't feel comfortable about.

  • Languages

    Languages spoken
    English: Fluent
    French: Fluent
    Dutch: Fluent
    German: Intermediate
    Polish: Intermediate

    This host offers a language exchange
    As we're hosting in groups of 4-6 people, the common language tends to be English. Of course, we will speak with you in French whenever you want and with a bit of luck there will be other French-speaking volunteers. But if you're looking for a full French language immersion, our place is not the right place for you. Claire is French-Polish, she's fluent in French and English, intermediate in Polish and Flemish/Dutch and knows a few words of Spanish. Michiel is Belgian, he's fluent in Dutch, French and English, intermediate in German and learning Polish at beginner level.

  • Accommodation

    Accommodation

    We provide your meals and housing in either our Tiny House or a room in the newly renovated stablehouse. The kitchen is shared in our house. All ameneties on site are available for you: woodstove, barbecue, pergola, terrace, mountainbikes, jacuzzi, kayaks, paddleboards, washing machine, ...

    We provide bedsheets and towels, as well as working clothes, safety boots and safety gear if needed. Of course you're welcome to take your own if that makes you feel more comfortable.

  • What else ...

    What else ...

    To allow us a family life, breakfast is shared between WorkAwayers in the hosting house, all other meals are shared all together in the main house. Hours and days are decided with everyone present, with respect of the 25 hours/week. We tend to do tasks together from Saturday to Tuesday, so you can have a three day weekend from Wednesday to Friday.
    We LOVE boardgames and we'll often play a quick game at lunch or a long one after dinner.
    Easiest pick-up for us is Calais Frethun train station, which has a direct connection to Paris, London and Brussels. We'll pick you up and drop you off at the train station.
    We're in the middle of the 'Parc Régional Naturel' so there's a lot of wildlife to be spotted around the farm and a lot of nice walking and biking routes around. We're also within the 'Grand Site des Deux Caps', which makes it one of France's hotspots to visit and means that most of the nicest spots are arranged for visitors with explanatory signs etc.
    If the weather allows for it, we'll take you on kayaking trips at sea, we might even have a barbecue on a sandbank 4km off the coast, only visitable a few times a year!

  • A little more information

    A little more information

    • Internet access

    • Limited internet access

      Limited internet access

    • We have pets

    • We are smokers

    • Can host families

  • Can host digital nomads

    Can host digital nomads

    Office space would be shared with Michiel, who is an architect working mostly from home. Time to socialise with us and the other volunteers present is really important to us, so we only accept part-time digital nomads, no more than 1 hour/day or 1 day/week.

  • Space for parking camper vans

    Space for parking camper vans

    There's more than enough space on our farm to find a nice spot for a van :D

  • How many Workawayers can stay?

    How many Workawayers can stay?

    More than two

Host ref number: 644657813744

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Photos

The image depicts a young couple embracing on a beach, with the man wearing glasses and a black-and-white striped shirt, and the woman wearing a matching top.
The image depicts a group of five people in a kitchen, surrounded by jars of pickles and various cooking utensils, with a warm and inviting atmosphere.
A group of people are gathered around a fire pit, enjoying a bonfire on the beach. The scene is peaceful and serene, with a sense of community and connection.
The image depicts a group of six people, including a baby, gathered around a wooden table playing a board game, surrounded by cards, dice, and other game pieces.
The image depicts four individuals enjoying a hot tub, with two men and two women, all holding cups, in a rustic room with a stone wall and wooden table.
A hand holds a white mug with the words \"To the moon and back\" in a garden with raised beds and a greenhouse in the background on a cloudy day.
A woman carrying a child on her back, walking along a gravel path, holding a basket of red vegetables, with a greenhouse and field in the background.
The image shows a group of seven people posing for a selfie in front of a white building with windows, with some holding up their hands and giving thumbs up.

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