A slightly rocambolesque expedition

We’re off to Toulouse again today. Gustav’s returning from Sweden on an evening flight so I’m going to take Munson for a leisurely drive across the Gers to check out a few places and then fill in time at the shopping precinct close to Blagnac airport. First stop was in Auch to check out a wool shop, but it looked like they’d not come back from lunch for the afternoon so we kept going. Incidentally Brent has suggested that I buy a sheep to have a personal wool supply, and run it with the cow herd on the farm (comme ça). My preference is to run angora rabbits with them, which will give Munson something to chase during knitting off-season. Forsaking Auch, I called ahead to Laine et Co in Monblanc where Yvonne & Mike run holiday rooms, a needlecraft centre and an internet supply centre. I checked off my immediate needs for correctly-sized needles and looked at some of the wool stock so I could get an idea of texture when choosing my next yarn. I have a standing invitation to return with any knitting project in progress for a cup of tea and another long chat. Yvonne mentioned an Anny Blatt store near the Capitole in Toulouse, so that gave me a little mission while filling up the remaining hours.   I found the Anny Blatt store very quickly on a side street away from the Place du Capitole. The centre of the store was mostly taken up by a group of ladies knitting around a table.  As I entered I got the usual raised eyebrow assessment of  a man appearing in an unfamiliar zone: “he’s been sent by someone and I hope he knows what he’s doing”. I quickly got the manager on side with my precise list of requests for various circular and double-pointed needles. She told me that some of the quarter-sizes like 3.75mm were Anglaise or Americain and I’d have to make do with 3.5mm or 4.0mm.  I guess I’ll actually get those over the internet and having an extra or two in those sizes will just be extras for the knitting toolbox. She asked if there were anything more and I said I just wanted to browse through the wool, but first I needed to check my dog outside. As we reached the door, another lady was pushing her head around it asking “is that your snow dog? He’s magnifique!”. Madame manager took one look and with swooping arms and an “Entrez!” told me to bring him in. I rescued Munson from a group of ladies on the street and delivered him into the cosy set inside. He found the whole thing quite diverting, aside from charming all the humans he wanted to sniff all the interesting animal hair piled up around the walls. After this I popped back to Album store to look over some more bandes-desinées  graphic novels, as I think they’re a good way to bolster my French. I spent a productive hour browsing through titles, marvelling at the artistry in so many of these slim volumes.  At the moment I’m reading a very witty comic homage to the universe of the Valerian series by Manu Larcenet titled L’Armure du Jakolass.  Not being familiar with his earlier work I had a poke around on the net, and bookmarked a few titles for later. I also came across his blog where he’d posted some rather wonderful images this month:     A labrador on the roof of the world                       Van Gogh comes to say hello to Monet I don’t know if these are stand-alone images or come from other novels: he does have a book about Vincent van Gogh and in the same spirit, one that’s grabbed my fancy: Le temps du chien – recounting a story of Sigmund Freud crossing the American West in the style of Don Quixote albeit with more overt psycho-analyses, during which adventure rocambolesque he encounters a stray dog searching for its soul. Something for everyone!

Finally we wound up at Blagnac airport, just in time to meet Gustav as he stepped out onto the concourse. Munson was very excited by this as I think he got a bit confused by Gustav’s disappearance there two weeks ago.