Overnight rain kept things cool, and since we weren’t all that keen to start doing the oval locks in rainy weather, we decided to stay another night in Toulouse. So we went up to the Capitainerie, where they were very cooperative in extending our stay, and also in printing the VNF vignette that we bought last week but had not yet been able to print ourselves.

Since it was Sunday, we also decided to walk up the canal to the St Aubin market after the rain had stopped. The market was just as we remembered it from three years ago when we played there. The only difference was that there were market stalls in front of the church where the band had set up to play. But the dealers were still there, doing a roaring trade with various passers-by (as can be seen below behind the bread stall).

We came back to the barge for lunch, then decided to go for a walk across town to the River Garonne, which we had not been to on various previous visits to Toulouse. As we walked through the big roundabout park just to the west of the port, we heard swing music and then saw lots of people dancing in the rotunda. There were people of all skill levels, from beginners to experts.

It was all very French, and reminded me of the Renoir painting of the dancers in Paris.

As we left that park, we entered a treed avenue in which a brocante market had been set up. This market was different from a lot of other markets we had seen, in that everything was genuinely old, and the prices showed accordingly. But there were some bargains to be had, as Rita picked up a guitar for 20euro, and we thought this old motorcycle might just interest our friend and ex-GP racer John Woodley back home.

We continued our walk across town and eventually reached the River Garonne at the Pont Neuf. While we found the “New Bridge”, we could not see the “Old Bridge” anywhere.

As we continued our stroll, the setting sun gave some interesting silhouettes, including all the people sitting on the stone wall along the bank of the river.

As often happens, the sound of music caught our attention and we drifted towards a guy playing an instrument we had never seen before. It turns out that he was Iranian, and he was playing the Santoori. We bought one of his CDs and then he discussed his music and life with us. He had stayed and played in many countries since leaving Iran and was now playing and teaching in Toulouse. His next goal was to go to Switzerland, so Rita gave him many clues about busking in Switzerland, and let him know about the Busking Festival in Bern. At this point he was interested in talking some more, so he gave us one of his beers from inside his trolley, showed Rita how to play and then let her play for a while. After about 30 minutes, we were getting concerned that we were taking up too much of his time, since he should have been playing and getting donations from the passing crowd. So we swapped contact details and them let him get on with his work, and we went to walk further down the river bank in the setting sun.

After we had walked down to the next bridge, we turned and headed back into town towards the Capitole building. As we were walking along, we recognised someone who had been at our Toulouse concert in 2014 - the young punk wearing the Tartan pants. He was still wearing the tartan, was still just as stoned/drunk, but this time instead of dancing along to our music and then falling into the pans, he and a mate were chasing a pigeon along a public street, then catching it and wringing its neck, and then feeding it to their dogs. He was looking a lot more than 3 years older!