Page 362 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

360

1928

Thursday 19th Jan.

Court. I have taken to having only 25 cases every morning, it used often to be over 30 which is more than one can take
with a clear brain. Gave a man 3 years for housebreaking. Went to the garden & got some flowers after lunch & also
to Suk al Khamis & back by the Budeya road. People to tea, the Barretts, Spences & Holmes. Bridge. Holmes
seemed rather cross. Very stormy looking but no rain. Read, the Kingdom of Theopheleas, by W.J. Locke, quite good
but there is rather a sameness in his characters.

Friday 20th [January]
Got up late & so had a headache - staying late in bed doesnt suit me. Motored out to Ali & got some roots of a pretty
sort of heather plant. Rained in afternoon but cleared up later & we went to tennis at the Agency. Shaikh Abdulla was
there & played tennis - of sorts & had a sort of tennis match with Holmes. Abdulla took it very seriously indeed.
Holmes, by mistake, beat him however he didnt seem to mind at all. There were 19 people at the Agency, including
Mission, all the white people except Smith who didnt come as he hurt his nose badly, broke a bone, by going through
the top of a car driven at 30 miles P.H over one of the bumpy bridges by Mohamed Yatim. These Arabs think its smart
to drive fast & are really very dangerous. Played Bridge afterwards. Had an awful sett of tennis with Mrs Hakken,
who shrieks & yells when she hits or misses, against Pennings & Mrs Dame. P spits at the ball, in a would-be comic
way, if it doesnt go over the net, & Mrs Dame who is simply enormous stands in the court & never hits at a ball unless
it happens to come in her reach. Awful.

Nasty damp gray day.

Saturday 21st [January]

Went to the market in the morning after breakfast; the Shaikh opened a new street in the bazaar, at least one that has
been widened, a great improvement. Quite an affair, speeches & cutting a cord stretched across the street.

Went to the Customs & then interviewed several people among them the owner of the garden at Swafieh
who seems agreable to an arrangement for a road to Mespers oil store. The Shaikhs third wife moved from Muharrak
to Sakhrir. Mail. Went over to Muharrak in afternoon. It rained on the way & hard while we were there. Sheltered in
the Police Station, old Mohamed bin Hindi came in, also the Amir, the former, an old pearl merchant & very old
fashioned, saw M looking at a paper & asked if she could read! Thought it surprising that she could. Armstrong came
round before dinner. Nasty gray wet day.

Sunday 22nd [January]

Various callers in the morning, Mohamed Sherif about some land of his, & Khalil Moayad about making a road on his
land to Idari spring, also Shaikh Hamud bin Sabah, president of the Meglis Urfi, very fussy & wanting to have rules on
paper etc etc. Went along to the oil store to see the arrangement about the road, & then to church. Really the service is
dreadful, they sing queer hymns to queerer tunes, Pennings preached a sermon that was so muddled it meant nothing.
Dinner with Holmes. Conversation about the Parkes. Noone else there.