I had lunch at Terra Tolosa which is my usual activity on Thursday. I have become a fixture there which is fun. Thomas told me as I was paying that they were getting an apprentice next week who they are going to train as a server. The apprentice’s goal is to become a sommelier and Remi is designated as his trainer. It will me interesting to meet the new staff member.

Lunch was very good. The entree was a poached egg on top of a purée of butternut squash. I am not a huge fan of eggs but I love butternut squash so was willing to try it. It also had roasted butternut squash seeds. The whole combination was very good. It was topped with feta cheese.

I went for the vegetarian option which was moelleux which is a soft cake. In the main dish, it was a muffin with dried tomatoes and olives. It was served with figs and fresh tomatoes. Again, it was on top of a butternut squash purée. The moelleux was very interesting and good. I definitely like fresh figs which I do not often eat. They are in season here now so I should probably by them in the market.

The dessert was an Entremet (cake) with what was described as prune. I have gathered that prune in French is what we call plums. I have always thought of as dried plums but here there does not seem to be a difference. I love the decorations on the desserts. As you can see, there is a slice of fresh fruit that definitely is a plum.

I had a new wine with lunch. It was a nice crisp white. The grape is Loin de l’Oeil (which translates to out of sight). This is because the grapes. The grapes grow in bunches on a long stalk far from where the bud of the grape vine is. It is an indigenous grape from Gaillac that was going extinct but has since been revived by local growers. I had never had it before and it was definitely on the have again list.

As I was walking around, I saw some large pieces of art leaning against a wall randomly. I always find these little oddities interesting. There was some excavation going on across the street for building work. My guess is that the art was going to be put up on the entrance of the construction site but was not sure. Next week, I will walk back along the street to see if my guess is correct.

After lunch, I stopped at the gallery with the painting I had posted on IG and here on the blog a couple of days ago. The painting had caught the interest of one of my friends. She is thinking of buying it so I had to find out the price and whether they could ship it to Canada. I stopped by and asked if the woman running the shop could speak English. She said know but she was talking to a man on the phone and she said he could translate for us. So we had a three way conversation regarding the painting and shipping. It was very amusing. The woman was the artist so that was interesting. We will see if I have to negotiate the sale and shipping.

In the evening, I ran with Run in Toulouse. It was a fun run. I went a little faster than I have in the last couple of runs. I was doing the en libre runs where you can run faster and ahead of the leader and then turn around and rejoin the group. I joke it s sort of a tempo run but not with specific distances for the sprints. Afterward, I stayed and did the renfro (calisthenics). It is sometimes hard on my elbows as we do it on cobbles.

The little red devil in the arch of the Pont Neuf had been missing since I had been back but yesterday it was back in its place. Not sure why it went missing but it is nice to see him back.

France is having a series of protests and strikes. This is especially true at high schools. There have been protests here in Toulouse but not at any of the schools that I regularly walk by in my daily routines. They have started fires at the entrances of the schools and other forms of vandalism. I gather it is worse in other cities in France than here. I gather the reason is that educational budgets are being cut because of France’s financial issues. It has one of the highest national debt rates in Europe. I will be interested to see if it spreads at all.