Final night

I was walking behind the others, on our way back to the bus when a man and his aged mother stopped me and pointed at my t-shirt. They were both grinning broadly. I looked down. He said Jeanne d’Arc and something else in French. I, naturally said Oui. He then asked if I’d been to Rouen to which I said Oui again. He gave me a thumbs up then walked away happy. The aged lady, his mother, smiled and said au revoir. This was not strange because it has happened before.

We had started the day with a walking tour of Toulouse with Jessica the guide. Jessica is an American living in France. Actually, she is only just an American. She has applied for citizenship and is waiting for the paperwork to come through. Anyway, she has been living and working in Toulouse for eight years.

She is very knowledgeable about Toulouse, a town where they have a different language to the rest of France. Given how annoyingly protective the French are about their language, it’s quite surprising that they allow this sort of thing to happen. In fact, most street signs are in both normal French and Occitan French.

I don’t know who the four bastards were and Jessica didn’t know either. Shame.

We also learned that the pain au chocolat is not called that in Occitan. It’s called a chocolatine. Don’t be surprised if you ask for a pain au chocolate and all you get are confused faces in reply.

It wasn’t all of us on the tour. Some, most notably, Anna, Sandra and Matt all went shopping instead, planning to meet us at our lunchtime restaurant. Dirk and Maryna stayed at the estate, chilling.

The walk and information were excellent and very informative. I now know to ask for a baguette traditional if I want the very best. And there is baguetiquettec which is strongly encouraged.

We went down as far as the Gironne and, of course, posed for a group photo.

We eventually left Jessica in the brilliant Victor Hugo covered market and headed for the restaurant, Gaia, for lunch. The food was excellent though the desserts could have been a bit smaller.

Eventually, back at the estate, we congregated in the smaller kitchen and combined herbs to create our own little bottles of Herbes de Provence. This was an extra special treat that Geraldine thought up.

Finally, for our last big kitchen exercise, we made Confit Byaldi. There was a lot of chopping vegetables into thin slices. In other circumstances, we would have used a mandolin but I think that could have been a bit risky given the crowd.

I was teamed with Anna and Matt and I reckon ours was pretty impressive.

Anna made the brilliant courgette and aubergine flower in the centre.

It was then just a case of preparing the cod to go with it and finishing the crème brûlée from yesterday. I didn’t think ours was solid enough though it tasted excellent. Then, finally, we all sat down to eat our final meal together.

There followed a raucous night of singing, dancing and almost tearful farewells (people are leaving at different times tomorrow morning) before people started wandering off to bed, ending a wonderful week.

Our final night coincided with Eurovision which, surprisingly, Bulgaria won.