After the cool change with the thunderstorms yesterday, we woke to a foggy morning this morning. In the late morning, I sat down with the computer to watch the LiveStream of the AFL match between Hawthorn and Sydney, the top two teams on the AFL Ladder. Commentators have since raved about the match as the best of the season, and it certainly was a tight affair. I must admit that when the Hawks fell 22 points behind early in the third quarter, I thought they were done for, but they then kicked nine of the next ten goals to go to a 20 point lead, and then held on to win by 10 points. A high quality game and a great result (for me) to bring the Hawks up to the same points position on the ladder as the Swans, but the Swans maintained a very slight percentage advantage to stay on top.

In the afternoon, we went to Castelsarrasin to do some emmaus (op-shop) browsing, since we had seen some good chairs there a week or so ago. When we got there we couldn’t see a chair in sight, and then found out that they were mostly a clothes op-shop, and had just been holding some chairs temporarily, with the furniture normally being in the nearby village of Ville-dieu-du-Temple. So we headed on down there, and while we didn’t find any suitable chairs, we saw some amazing cheap sideboards and cupboards, many in a similar style to what is already in the house. When we allocate our existing furniture to rooms, we know where to come to pick up some more grand pieces, all priced between about 60euro and 120euro. They might be out of fashion in general, and hence cheap, but they could be perfect for retaining the old world charm in the house.

Since we couldn’t find the right chairs at the emmaus, we bit the bullet and returned to Weldom who had some stackable chairs we had seen earlier. Although they only had four in stock, they checked their online inventory and found another eight at the store just south of Toulouse. Since we planned on going down there next week, we asked them to put the eight on order for us to pick up. With our existing chairs at the house, this should hopefully be enough for everyone to have somewhere to sit when the band arrives.

That evening, while Rita went up to a night concert near the Abbaye, I went up to the house to use the wifi to watch a LiveStream of the first round of the Speedway World Cup from Kings Lynn, UK. Australia were competing against Great Britain, USA and Italy, and were warm favourites to win and go straight through to the Final next weekend. However, it was one of those nights when nothing went right, and they trailed in third behind GB and USA, to go through to the Elimination Final in the middle of next week. And to think that I had contemplated going to this meeting, as a side-trip while attending a DBA meeting in London!