Today we had made arrangements to visit Toulouse to check arrangements for the St Aubin Market concert on Sept 7. We also planned to do a bit of shopping in the “big smoke”. Just as we were about to leave, Iain called from across the canal saying that the mailman had just delivered a package for us, and that it looked like a tall toilet! So we said we’d pick it up as we left town. It turned out to be Rita’s old tchembe that had been sent from Bern by Sarah for us to use in the concerts.

We have now driven to Toulouse enough times for it to seem very familiar, and we found the St Aubin cathedral quite easily. We got there early enough to have a look through while waiting for our contact from the Mairie to arrive. When he did arrive, he was more than helpful, and showed us when and where we could set up, where to get electricity from, and the places where he would reserve parking spaces for the camion and one of the nine-seaters. He also advised up to go talk with the priest at the cathedral and give him a brochure and explain the background to the group, since they sometimes had concerns about the music on Sunday mornings when mass was happening in the church. I suspect we might play Amazing Grace more than once during the church service! In the end, Rita could only make contact with the caretaker, who promised to pass the materials on to the priest.

After a coffee at the local cafe, we then headed to South Toulouse to the IKEA store to buy bed linen. Once more we realised that buying supplies for a B&B is very different from buying supplies for a house. When have I ever bought 16 pillows at the same time!! But we were quite happy that we were able to knock over all the linen purchases in one go - doonas, doona covers, fitted sheets, mattress protectors, pillows and pillow cases for all the double and single beds. The girl at the checkout wondered what we were up to.

We then headed even further south to Autrive to the nearest Weldom store, to pick up the stackable chairs that we had ordered from Moissac Weldom last week. We were surprised that there was no Weldom in Toulouse itself until we got to Autrive and realised that it was a town full of outlet shops - the perfect place for a weekend shopping expedition from Toulouse! While we were there we also checked out the domestic macerator toilets, but since they only had boxed items, and none on display, we decided to wait until we returned to Moissac to check them out at the local Weldom.

Once we got back to Moissac, we went up to the house to do some weeding and to check out progress. While there was still a bit of work to do, we could see that great progress was being made.