Page 64 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

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1926

Friday [2nd July]

Feeling rather limp with a heavy cold so didnt do much except put up curtains & pictures in the house. Its a nice little
place. As usual on first floor, a big sitting room, bedroom, dressing room & dining room & long veranda with flight of
steps coming up to it, all in the centre outside wall of the fort - something like this [drawn sketch]

The two towers are part of the fort & our house is in the middle of the fort wall with garage below. We face over a
strip of sand, with road crossing it, to the town, & just opposite there are a lot of big coffee shops & a taxi stand which
is the sort of Piccadilly Circus of Manama, at night it is very gaily lit & rather noisy with constant cars up & down,
gramophones, singing etc, but it all closes down at 10 pm. About 100 yds to the left of us is the Sheikh's Palace - so
called. I went over it this morning. Its a poor place & was awfully dirty & I stirred up his servants to get it all cleaned
out as he is coming to live there on Monday. They had kept hawks in one of the few decent rooms for six months! &
hadn't cleaned it out!

Went a drive in the evening out at the back towards a place they call Essex point, a nice place to motor as its all across
firm hard sand so easy driving. M drove some of the way. This house is really twice as comfortable as the other place,
& much cooler, though I miss the sea & the boats. Had the punkah going all night, an advantage living here is that one
can always get prisoners to do any sort of jobs such as pulling punkahs. Didnt go to tennis at Daly's owing to cold.

Saturday 3rd July