Bright star

The air was beautifully clear and bright today and I'd intended to go out on a mazet hunt, but spent too long in the garden, planting tomato and lettuce plants and wondering at how quickly weeds and wanted plants grow at this time of year. This wild salsify (Tragopogon porrifolius) was flowering by the path to the garden. Two hours later when I passed it again it had closed....they don't last long.

Yesterday when I was blipping after a long lunch I forgot to say what I'd thought of the film, Los Amantes Pasajeros, on Saturday evening. Well, the Guardian reviewer gave it three stars out of five and I think that's about right. It was very light and funny, welcome after Almodóvar's recent rather depressing films, there was a funny scene about agua de Valencia, a cocktail I enjoyed when I was in Valencia although this one had an extra ingredient that I don't think was in mine, and all of us in the audience laughed a lot. There was a little serious reference to the economic crisis and the corrupt financial deals that led to it, but mainly it was just light-hearted comedy. I was disappointed when I got to the cinema and found that this showing was version française, dubbed into French, and I hate dubbed films. The night before, if we'd been free, we could have seen the original version with French subtitles, and I would have preferred to try to follow the Spanish (and hear the actors' real voices) before resorting, quite quickly, to the subtitles.