Page 12 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

11

1926

Spent most of the morning with Daly, & went over to the house for an hour before lunch & again afterwards, then
changed into flannels & played tennis. The same people came to tea - altogether an unattractive crowd. Pickering,
the bank manager, who looks like a cockerel, very red about the neck & face, tries to be comic all the time & talks
much of when he was in Calcutta & secretary of some little twopenny club, the Spences, shipping commercial &
terribly on their dignity & thoughtful about their "position" which really is non existent. Mrs S doesnt like M going in
before her to dinner etc. He is an ill tempered ill mannered fellow. de Grenier, the Customs man, who is going, was
described as "quite the little gentleman" which suits him well. He is very oily & very ill bred & hopeless at his job. He
& Daly do not hit it off at all well - but nobody could tolerate him for long. The missionary men are very queer &
uncouth, low class Dutch Americans, mostly very anti English, & one decidedly queer in the head. The women are
better to look at, but giggle incessantly - of the lot there's not one person one would wish to meet again - !! Really its
a pity.

Saturday [10th April]

Moved over to the house after breakfast. Spent all the rest of the day working hard at getting things fixed up, putting
up shelves & curtains. M sewed a lot of curtains & things on Mrs D's machine which we put up. We went down the
bazaar in the morning & did a good deal of shopping. Bought one striped rug, they are local make, but this is a
particularly nice one with pleasant dull colours & an attractive pattern, cost 15 rupees, also a carpet, yellowish colour,
Persian, & I think quite a good one, but torn, so we had it mended for 35 rupees. 13½ rupees are equal to £1. Very