Page 1850 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

1847

1944

Fort. Gray cloudy day but not cold. Spent most of the morning at Agency at a
compensation meeting, W.P.A. & Grisewood & Tandy, they stayed on discussing Qattar.
The Agency has got in a rare muddle over it all have threatened to put in an agent,
contrary to treaty & failing that to cut off food supplies, which now they are loath
to do. HH & Shs M & A came & I found HH & Sh M still in the ofice when I returned.
HH very pleased with James.

In afternoon did some scenery painting & then went to Gasari & later had a rehearsal,
the cast stayed on to dinner. The rehearsal went off better but few seemed to know
their parts.

Sunday 24th December

A celebration in the morning, heavy rain from an early hour so very few people, only
eight. Worked all the morning upstairs at the Budget, rained very heavily on & off
most of the day so nobody came to see me. M went up to see the Muharram procession in
the evening & didnt return till midnight. I finished painting the scenery & sat up
listening to wireless. Akirim & Ali Merzh came in very jubilant at finding the six
tyres stolen from Airways bus. The Police have done some good work lately. A few
presents but nothing awkward.

Monday 25th December

XMAS DAY
Usual visitors in the morning, not as many as many as usual as very few Shias called
owing to Muharram. To church at the Mission, it was packed with Americans, a dismal
& peculiar service, the only good feature being reading of the lessons by M who
read extremely well. To lunch at the Snows, a huge party, 24 or so. Afterwards the
two little girls opened their parcels. The TTs came after tea & deal with things for
the play, rather to M's annoyance. Quite a nice day & no rain for a change. War
news is bad, Germans counter-attacking with success. Twelve people at dinner, the
Hutchings, TTs, Snows Smith & Tandy. Played consequences after dinner, rather
feeble. Lovely clear night, for the first time for weeks, the night of the big