Toulouse

Helen and Jonny in the classic Toulouse Pose

Ok, that's enough of my pyschological breakdown for now. Where am I?

Well, I finished up in Labastide and said a fond(ish) fairwell to my crazy host family and agreed to meet up with the wonderful Australians in Avignon if possible.

I lept aboard my trust mobylette and jetted in a mere four hours to Toulouse where I met the delightful Waterhouse and her old university friend Jonny who has lived here for two years working (as virtually every english person here does) at Airbus.

We had a fairly glorious few days of relaxation in the time Helen was here and she departed early this morning with a traditional Levy send-off of one eye open and a vaguely groaned "see yer...". In the intervening time we've sat in some fabulous spots with drinks, eat in some magically delicious restaurants and swum in a super-sized municipal pool. A few photographic highlights follow below:

Helen on Jonny's balcony

Us hanging out in a bar

A truely beautiful little restaurant called "Seventh Heaven"

Helen and Jonny framed by the Pont Neuf

The merry cyclists

An unfortunately named Toulousian boutique

Some mouth-wateringly beautiful (and typical) architecture

A snap of the single most charming object ever to appear in a park. It's an incredibly beautiful and complex carousel

Toulouse has proved itself to be a truely beautiful city (as opposed to one of those places where the cameras have to be strategically placed to capture the few impressive sights whilst obscuring the drudgery- London and Cambridge spring to mind) and one that is absolutely soaked with young happy and relaxed people having a good time and generally staying out of each other's way. I've never seen such a harmonious co-existence of a large population (outside of a uni campus). A walk along the river sees groups of teenagers drinking, people playing guitar or bongos, lovers having a leisurely snog and strollers of all ages enjoying the same space of earth without having to claim the territory as their own. We Brits could learn a lot from these people.

Virtually every café and restaurant (and there are hundreds, each one a little bijou one-off that would make Londoners weep with joy) is ram-packed from around 7 to about mignight with merry eaters and drinkers and the buskers who sometimes roam amongst them have their families with them, and seem genuinely well received as valid entertainment. It's beautiful.