La ville rose

I had to take S to Lézignan for 9 a.m. today, as he's off to walk RL Stevenson's "Travels with a donkey" route with his walking club. So I thought I might as well catch the train to Toulouse to visit Marie-Hélène Carcanague's studio, having had a few email exchanges with her.

Cities, eh. They are very tiring. Having got the the Place du Capitole and picked up the brochure for the open studios from the tourist office, I decided to have a coffee. The Place wasn't looking its best -- it was cordoned off and covered in tents for a Handisport event, and the Capitole itself was covered in scaffolding. I sat down at one of the large, busy cafes, ordered a coffee, and started to read the brochure. When I next looked up, I realised 20 minutes had gone by and still no coffee. Instead of complaining, I took my custom elsewhere, to a much smaller cafe.

Next, I headed to the Couvent des Jacobins (blip, see also extras 1 and 2 as I couldn't decide). Entry was free as there's a city wide art and music event happening. There were some not particularly interesting sculptures, and in the chapterhouse off the cloister a young and very talented pianist was practising a rousing medley from West Side Story on a grand piano (I checked the musical programme and she didn't appear to be part of it). My blip is of a side chapel with lovely 14th-century wall paintings.

From there I hoped to go to the art gallery specialising in photography at the Château d'Eau (water tower) just the other side of the river from the Capitole. But when I got to the Pont Neuf, it was cordoned off by a squad of CRS, with several vanloads of reserves around the corner. I guess they were expecting an anti-vax demo but there was no sign of one, and I don't think the automatic rifles would have been necessary even if there were. I could actually see my destination, but nope ... I could have done a long detour via the next bridge, but it was too hot for that. So back to the metro to get to the burbs where Marie-Hélène's house is -- a kilometre from the nearest metro, and I was definitely overdressed for the heat, as it had been raining when we left home.

I was the first visitor, so I introduced myself and had coffee and a chat with M-H, her partner, and the sculptor exhibiting in her lovely garden (extra 3). We turned out to have many artists in common, including our sometime neighbour, Pamphyle, as her partner has a cousin who lives near us.

Afterwards I called in at another local studio near the metro station, and was then tired enough to head to the railway station rather than have another attempt at the Pont Neuf. I did call in at the lovely Ombres Blanches bookshop  to buy some books, one good thing about cities.

I'm glad I went anyway, because back in Lézignan, the weather was still horrible, with thick, low cloud (volcano smoke perhaps?). This may have accounted for the most photogenic thing I saw all day, a large flock of confused looking cranes flying in circles barely above head height, no doubt baffled by the low cloud. I was driving home though, and there was nowhere nearby to stop, so you will just have to imagine it.

Here's S's view -- looks cloudy there too.