It was a lovely day for Easter. It was around 75 (25 Celsius) degrees and beautifully sunny. A perfect spring day for Easter.

I got up fairly early and headed off to the St. Aubin’s market. I have been trying to buy olive oil from my olive purveyor but they have not had a the small size. I really did not need anything else but hoped the olive oil would be available. I did buy more olives and pistachios. I have found that the pistachios are a great snack when I need one.

I bought my usual chocolatine from Maison Pillon for breakfast. It was doing a good business of selling Easter candy and desserts. I have held off buying Easter candy as I figure it is going to go on sale now that Easter is over.

I, then, went to the English Easter mass at Saint Sernin. I had previously gone to the Anglican Church but the metro stop closest to it is closed so getting there would have been complicated and I really do not mine going to the Catholic Church so that is what I did. The service was very nice. The organist is very talented and played beautiful music especially the closing piece. Unfortunately, other than some hymn tunes, I am not good at recognizing music so I did not know what the piece was.

There were two groups of Americans near me. One lives in Toulouse based on the conversation I overheard. The others seemed to mother and daughter who lived in Paris and were visiting Toulouse for the weekend. A funny part of the conversation was the temperature of the basilica. It is usually chilly if not cold in the basilica even though it was warm outside. The Toulouse resident said it was always cold in the church. I had felt the same thing when I was attending service. I even see the priest who leads the service walking around the church with a warm scarf wrapped around his neck. I have wondered how the poor congregation handled the cold in winter services when there was no real heat anywhere.

At the end of the mass, the priest announced that he had commissioned a new crèche for Christmas. He said it is be crafted by a nun at a nearby convent who is 84 years old. He joking told the congregation that the nun said she could not make large statues of the characters any longer but he had negotiated with her to get statues that were as tall as her age which meant 84 centimeters (1 yards approximately). I do not think I will get to see the new crèche as I will not be here in Christmas but it should be amazing.

After the service which ended in the early afternoon as it did not start until noon and then was a little late starting and was long, I walked to La Reserve, my go to afternoon evening cafe/bar for my Aperol Spritzes. The woman (unfortunately I do not know her name) who owns the bar and is a server recognizes me and always is very welcoming when I arrive. She will only speak French to me so I sort of assumed she did not speak English. I heard her speaking English to another group and commented on it – she said she only speaks French to me as I try to speak French and she wants me to learn and practice. I found that very nice and funny!

The good part is when I was paying the bill, she told me she was charging me happy hour prices not the regular price. It is nice to make friends and be considered a regular.

While I was at La Reserve a group of 4 guys came and sat at table near me. I could not figure out what they were doing but they kept giving away socks. They looked like running socks. They gave them to the servers but the most confusing interaction was when the group who was sharing the table with them (the tables sit 8) they offered one of women a vest. Not sure what was going on but they insisted that she take it and she did. I wish I could understand French when it is spoken very quickly so I could have figured it out.

Between this interaction and the impromptu birthday celebration, I feel I have build a good life here in Toulouse. I have to add the running group is a large part of it as well. All of this made me realize how blessed I was to be able to live the life I am. As the saying goes, I am living my best life.

The last part of the day was cooking myself Easter dinner. Last year, I had Easter lunch at Terra Tolosa but they were not doing Easter lunch this year so I decided to cook dinner myself. As I said in the last post, I bought a boneless leg of lamb.

I prepared it with garlic, olive oil and rosemary. I was afraid that I might not cook it well enough as I do not have a thermometer to test doneness. I cooked it for what a google search said was the time per pound and it worked out. I guess I should not be surprised as for years no one had thermometers.

As you can see, I added grilled (pan grilled) eggplant, rosemary potatoes and zucchini. It turned out a great meal and ideal for Easter.

I had bought the Cahors Malbec and as the vendeuse at the wine boutique stated, it went very well with the lamb.

I had bought an Easter cake from A Rose Poussin for dessert and it was a good finish for the dinner.