Friday 18th June 1943

William and I watered the garden after tea last night, very thoroughly. (The earth was still damp this morning.) There'll be no more rain until maybe November in Palestine; the hot, dry summer is well advanced. All the same this summer has seemed much more cool than any other I've known in the Middle East.

I took the hose back to stores at about 8:30p.m. then returned to ward 36 along the tree-lined tarmac road. The full moon, the trees, the road reflecting moonshine, the strong night scents of flowers and wet, bedewed earth; all these together stirred a faint memory of some former and pleasant experience which seemed to include the smell of fresh hay... But then I plucked a handful of leaves from a tree as I passed. And immediately, the strong aroma of eucalyptus drowned all other scents and the memory also!