Saturday 24th July 1943

It is pleasant under my white sandfly net at nights; the air smells good and fresh and there's that peculiar aroma of damp earth. If I awake in the night I hear the steady drip! drip! of drops of dew, trickling from the roof on to the earth at the foot of my bed. In the mornings, when I awake at the sunrise, the garden looks green and dark and wet...

But in the days it is increasingly difficult to find shelter from the winds; the ward has a strong wind blowing through all the day until dusk – and then the fans are still spinning savagely, agitating the air which might otherwise have lain placid.

At the moment I'm in a small, stone-walled room – the bathroom – so all is well. There is a little current of air, crossing me from left to right, as I can see the drifting cigarette smoke, but I can stand a certain amount of draught.