Our day out in Castelnaudary 2

Ezra Loves this town. Sometimes, (it has to be a gloomy drizzly sort of day) he says in a wistful way, 'Can we visit Castelnaudary?' and I say 'why'? knowing in fact why he has suggested it. If you are attracted to dismal looking factories and train tracks (as we seem to be) this is the place to go within easy reach of our own town. It has many classic representations of Southern French beauty: the canal, a fine church, towering plane trees, etc, but it's the factories we end up wandering around on a grey day.
So, we set off with camera (me) sketchbooks (him) money for a hot chocolate and warm socks.

Here are some snaps from the day's adventures, after which I went down with some sort of virus . . .

Hibernating hydrangeas.

We didn't see who lived here, but the sandy construction was about the size of a boiled sweet.

A lovely tap

Pierre's house?

 Canal du Midi

Ezra's favourite factory - something to do with grain. I stood for a long time and watched the pigeons flock from one end of the buildings to the other, with seemingly no reason to do so, but then what do I know about pigeons' raison d'être.

I don't usually like peach-coloured paint, but for some reason I found this rather classy 50s? building rather wonderful in its new coat - hypnotically so. I walked around for ages just looking at the way the light changed the tones from peach to warm sandy-yellow, before I realised that I was totally freezing, and we went to sit in Café St Francis (I think it was) where the hot chocolate was delicious.