Page 1228 - Belgrave Diaries(N)_Neat

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1940

Wednesday 25th January

Fort. Went late as I thought it was raining. Actually only a short light shower. Very little rain so far.

Saw Steele about hospital sanitary equipment, it is horribly expensive. Holmes came round & kept me till
2.15, as usual very grumpy. I am sick of the oil business & many others are too.

Bridge & tennis. Chilly evening. Went to cinema with HH, an Egyptian film, not very good.

Thursday 26th January

Meeting at Sakhrir with Holmes - much talk round about the same subject & it all ended in HH letting
Holmes have a month to reply in. HH was as usual very stupid & made most unsuitable remarks,
complaining to Holmes that Bapco made him pay for repairing cars and for buying petrol. He really is quite
hopeless, so undignified, & so unwise. Man from Imperial Chemicals called. Saw Ali bin Ahmed, discussed
his new job, & also the Ali bin Khalifah case. Went to Budeya in afternoon, garden doing very well. Lipp
called & brought two men to call, they had been in Eygpt on western desert quite lately. Davies came
round after lunch, very upset about the postponment of oil talks , I don't blame him. Dance at Awali,
"Highland Ball" a depressing & very drafty affair, such a lot of very common people, the dance began at 10
pm, so late, & we stayed till about 1 am. Did not enjoy it. Before the dance we went to the cinema,
Marlene in Knight without Armour, good in parts but too much repetition of similar incidents - Russian

Revolution stuff.

Friday 27th January

Gardened in morning, did a lot of cutting & pruning, thinned out a lot of trees. In afternoon we went in the
launch to the island off Budeya, waded ashore & had a look round. Lovely evening but warm, 60 in the
house. Sh Abdullah bin Hamed came round in the evening in a great fuss as h seems to think HH should
treat him as a person of more importance than he is. How difficult all these young Shaikhs are & how
stupid.

Saturday 29th January