When arriving at the hotel I realized that I had not been shooting any photos all day, and consequently had nothing to propose for the Photo-a-Day challenge. Those of you, who know that we hang in there for more than one and a half year to continuously hone our flair for seeing potential motifs in the environments where we live and breathe, will understand that I had to get out in the streets, so that I could deliver.

Being in the centre of Toulouse I would have no excuse for not delivering at least a few candidate shoots. So I left the hotel, turned left and headed towards the old quarters of town Inge introduced to me when the summer was still in its prime.

But, to my disappointment, the La Vielle Ville was totally lacking the magic Inge had introduced me to, the subtle play of light and shadows in the old brick walls, the violent contrasts imposed by the intense daylight as it fell on the narrow streets. Now it was the twilight zone of the day that reigned and in those narrow streets I found absolutely “nothing” that inspired me to get the camera out of the pocket.

It was when I passed the Brasserie des Beaux Arts that the thought installed itself in my mind that perhaps inspiration was to be found in there, well helped by a nice meal and a glass of the local wine. Well, for some reason I continued my walk, now along the embankment of the river La Garonne. Perhaps due to the fact that the open space over the river made me notice the interesting light a beautiful day provides when it turns into a pleasant night. So I continued and passed the school of fine arts, Beaux Arts – more art, I thought, and felt the distance to inspiration being extended.

A left-right turn of the street led me right to the Café des Artistes! Boy, I thought, it continues! But I was familiar with the place, because Inge had introduced me to it as well. This familiarity was perhaps what made me sit down at a free table on the pavement in front of the café – and, when the waiter showed up, order a glass of dry white wine.

It appeared to me that these days it is only in this region of la belle et douce France that the weather is really mild, so I leaned back, let a certain degree of calmness install itself in my body and started to notice the life around me. There were the passers by, students and professionals on business trips, a few motorbikes and scooters and cars and bicycles – and the other customers of Café des Artistes conversing at the neighbouring tables.

Some of them, perhaps the majority, sat there in the mild evening with their aperitifs – and some of the professionals on business trips were not just promenading, but heading toward the various restaurants the town is full of. When this thought crossed my mind, my stomach involuntarily send a signal to my brain that it might be a good idea if I moved on as well and found a place to eat.

Reacting positively to that prime signal from my body led me not only to a delicious dish of tagliatelle with pesto sauce seasoned with garlic and freshly grated parmesan – it also led me to an indirect introduction of artists in another genre than ours.

Did I talk to them? No. Did I eavesdrop? No. Was I indiscrete? No. But in French brasseries the tables are so close to each other that I would have to sit with fingers stuck into both ears not to overhear their conversation. So, instead of being irritated of my quiet corner of the restaurant becoming a lively place – I leaned back and enjoyed the rest of my glass of read wine from Gaillac, and let my neighbours introduce me to their sector of the professional world.

They were dancers! Two male dancers, who after introductory words on how to connect to the internet gradually opened up for a mutual exchange on how it was where they presently worked, and what they had heard and knew of other places, in particular inspired by one of the two’s one-time experience in Paris.

Their aspirations were tightly connected to Paris, to the dreams of one day dancing in Paris! Whereas I could understand them from a professional point of view, I kind of felt pity with the lovely, lively city of Toulouse which their dreams reduced to a second order place of provincial orientation.

But, perhaps this is perfectly normal and how it should be in any profession.

With these thoughts I left the restaurant – and on my way back to the hotel I shot what I consider a good candidate for the Photo-a-Day challenge…

There is this about intensions – they always sound very plausible when formulated, but so often something comes in the way when time comes to implement them. Some say that the way to Hell is paved with good intensions. I take it that we here talk about unfulfilled intensions and do hope though, that all those of that sort I have formulated in the course of time are not paving stones on that particular way, but on ways that lead to more pleasant places.

Since that is metaphoric, I will of course never know where my unfulfilled intensions became fragments of some infrastructure. It is not that interesting either. What can be more interesting is sometimes to reflect a little over why I eventually did not implement some of my (always) good intensions. Well, what would that help, some may say, since this is reflecting about something in the past and they would point towards the future where a lot of undone activities may profit more from the energy spent on this kind of reflection?

That may well be true – of course it is – but while sitting painting today I nevertheless allowed myself to reflect about coincidences related to that of not implementing ones good intensions. My reflection was linked to the carwash.

Last weekend it was my intension Sunday morning bright and early to drive the little car, which Inge primarily uses, to the carwash. Due to some reasons I already have forgotten, perhaps it was pouring down, it did not happen. Because that did not happen, the car’s fuel tank was also not replenished at the garage I pass by when going there. And because of that Inge had to pump herself the other day.

Since Inge is a motorist living according to the dogma, that real women don’t pump, you can understand that this was a serious consequence of me not following through on that intension. So yesterday I said to myself that – come Hell or high water – that car would be washed this morning. And I topped that intension up with another intension, that I would leave bright and early – not only to avoid a potential crowd at the carwash, but also to do some highly aesthetical photographing over the race course when dawn turned it into this ephemeral softly lit place that requires sunshine from a low angle and early morning mist in the autumn.

All good and noble intensions, right? I was about to write “Yes”, but realised that before you came to that word, you’d already started to speculate what came in the way of these very noble intensions, right?

The answer is that I didn’t fall into a sound sleep last night. I remember reading 05:00 or thereabout last time I checked the alarm clock and thinking that in an hour’s time I surely would be awake again and then get out of bed as intended.

When I woke up 07:30 I knew instantly that it was too late for that ephemeral soft light over the race course. I nevertheless took the camera with me to the carwash and going there I passed by the race course. It still had the hazy atmosphere of the morning mist, so I made some shoots. But I couldn’t change the fact that dawn had turned into day and that special light I had had in mind was gone.

So, what can I conclude from this reflection about intensions? Perhaps that it shows a good will to formulate good intensions, but some universal principle has arranged it so that they cannot all be fulfilled. Now, that would be comfortable, wouldn’t it? But it probably does not work that way, so I have to console myself with the thought of knowing that the little car distinguishes itself in the parking place by being spotlessly clean.

Drove a retro-car this week. A reminiscence of the legendary Fiat 500. Well, it was perhaps only long after that it had been phased out of production in 1975 that this little car was recognized as a legend. The Fiat 500 was introduced in 1957 – I was 7 years old then and of course already into that boy-thing of knowing which car models were the hottest. That is, the hottest amongst those we saw in the middle-sized provincial town where I grew up.

They were not that many, and surely the Fiat 500 did not count at all, when talk was about fancy cars. But the Fiat 500 became part of the street-life, and continued to be until up into the 70′ties. When I by the end of the 60′ies visited Italy for the first time, these small cars were of course everywhere. They didn’t count at that time either, when it came to desired cars. Then, I remember vividly, it was the Alfa Romeo Giuila Sprint GTA, a coupe with wooden steering wheel and knob on the gearlever.

But this week, the Fiat 500 suddenly came into the picture again when I on a trip got the opportunity to rent one for a couple of days. Ha, when seating myself I flashed back to the end of the 50′ies and I had great fun of driving the car. The designers of this retro-model would of course be very pleased to read that it set me back, further back in time than most of the present clientele for this retro-model will ever be able to remember, all the way back to the 50′ties – since this was exactly the designers’ intensions. Of course!

But, what was it, I wondered, that gave me that feeling of flashing back in time? And, flashing back at all was also a mystery – since this car had air conditioning, 5 gears, rev counter, stereo radio, adjustable seats and several other gadgets no one dreamed about in the context of small cars for Mr. Everybody way back in my childhood.

There were two factors, I concluded. One was the fact that the dashboard was of painted metal, the same white colour as the outside of the car. That was very normal for smaller cars in the 50′ies and 60′ies, and I have not seen this since we sold our VW beetle in 1977.

The other retro factor was the tail gate. In the 50′ies it opened up to the small straight-two engine of 479 or 499 cubic centimetres, only. Today the engine is in the front so now the tailgate opens up to a diminutive boot. But that didn’t change it – the retro feeling, I mean, because it was the small size of the tail gate and the feeling of something light and cheap – characteristic of small cars way back then – that made it.

So, with me behind the steering wheel two relatively simple factors played in favour of the designer’s intensions of giving the driver a retro feeling: A painted dashboard and the feeling of a cheap tail gate.