Peacock blue

First, thanks for all the hearts and stars for yesterday's dunes -- I'm glad I'm not alone in finding them beautiful!

More inaccurate tourist information meant that we arrived for a second time at the Casa de Fusta (an information centre and museum) to find it closed when it was supposed to be open. I had to satisfy myself with taking photos of their many captive birds. As well as this handsome fellow, there was a beautiful pheasant. It was easy to get close but difficult to take photos because they were in a wire chicken run. After that we just drove around looking at the delta scenery and bird-spotting, and stopped for a beer in Poblenou before heading home.

I was saddened to read that Tony Benn had died. He is probably unknown to non-British readers, but he was a huge figure in the British left in the 1970s and 1980s. A lot of people thought he was barmy, and certainly he was a bit off the wall in some of his ideas (and you could argue was largely responsible for the implosion of the Labour Party in the 1980s). But he was a rare man of principle in public life, who stuck to his ideas and spoke his mind, driven by his beliefs rather than by the latest focus groups, intolerant of cant and hypocrisy. We could do with more like him. My mum was active in the Labour Party in the 1970s and was a fan of his, so I met him a couple of times and he was every bit as charming as people say he was.