Monday is always life maintenance day. As I have said before, many stores and restaurants are closed on Monday so it is a good day to do the laundry, clean the apartment and other necessary aspects of life.

As many times as I do laundry and run the dishwasher, I am amazed at how slow the process is. It is very economical and environmentally friendly but just to American sensibilities it seems to take forever. Also, the air drying clothes makes process important. You cannot need something quickly cleaned to wear. With my life in retirement and not working, it really is not an issue. The limited amount of clothes I bring does make me ensure that I do laundry once a week.

After the life maintenance, I went for a run along the river and to the Parc de Garonne. I decided to do a 10 miles run as I have signed up for the Toulouse Half Marathon and need to train for it. I have not run long distances since I was last in Toulouse. I did the run at an 8:30 pace which is slower than I would like but a good start. I have four weeks to get into better shape. I have not run a race in almost 4 years so training for a race is not something I have done since then. I am committed to doing well – most likely not a PR but decently so training is required. I have the advantage that I run with Run in Toulouse twice a week so only have to add the weekend long run and one other run a week and I should be able to run the half marathon.

The Parc de Garonne is a great place to ego run. It has three circuits that range from 5k to 10k loops. It is about 2.5ks form my apartment to the entrance to the Parc so I can easily get a 15k run by doing the longest circuit with just a little bit of add on along the river within the city.

The Parc has difference surfaces and terrain which makes the run interesting. There is paved trail, dirt road parts and then forest trails. Part of it is open land with horse stables, golf courses and farms along the edges. Then there is a nice trail right along the banks for the river. It is shaded so makes it a nice trail to run. I never thought I was a trail runner but am getting to like the trail parts of the circuit.

After the run, I met Raghu at a cafe for an afternoon beverage, not alcoholic. It is fun to have someone who is American to talk to about life in France and travel. He is also a runner so that is fun to talk about as well. I will lose his company as he is heading to Spain on Thursday. It will be back to my total Toulouse life.

In the evening I went to a piano concert at the Cloisters of the Convent of the Jacobins. I say an advertisement for the concert in a store window and looked it up online and found that there was a series of piano concerts in the cloisters during the month of September. It seems to be an annual event that has gone on for 46 years.

I had been in the church but not the cloisters as it is a museum and has an entry fee. The setting in the cloisters as fantastic as there is a courtyard off the garden with vaulted roof where the concert was held.

The accoustics were incredible which I did not expect. I guess the stone walls and the vaults add to the sound.

The concert was something I had never seen before two pianists playing one piano. The first piece was Stravinsky’s Rites of Spring. The music is very emotional and vibrant which sounded fantastic in the cloisters. They then played two Schubert pieces – both were very romantic and much lighter than Stravinsky.

The performers were Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy. I am not a pianist aficionado but both seemed excellent. I was fascinated by Samson Tsoy as he seemed to hum to himself as he played the pieces.

Elizabeth Leonskaja who is celebrating her 80th birthday was being celebrated in this concert and one tomorrow night joined the pianist on stage and performed a piece by Rachmaninov. It was very amazing to see three people play the same piano.

All in all it was a very fun day and evening.