Breakfast 6.30am, went ashore 7.00am. We were driven in buses past docks and cranes decorated with little flags - everything was done to try and put a welcome into the arid desert scene.
There was quite a wide strip of barren-ness before the mountains which were dark, sandy-coloured, bleak, bare and ridged - as if they'd been chiselled and you could see the marks. We saw camels.
10 minutes' journey to the Clothing Centre at Adibaya. This was Kentville Camp. German pows, wearing grey with a dark diamond patch on back of shorts and trousers, were working within camp on roads.
We were disembarked into a Rest Room - a converted hangar, with carpeted floor, tables with flag-tableclothes; shell cases with roses, and lovely cushioned chairs; and a nursery place for kids, sort of fenced off with artificial green ferns - chute, rocking horses, seesaw, swing etc.
We could buy cosmetics, and have free lovely cakes, sandwiches and drinks.
Then to another hangar where we waited in lovely chairs, and were taken in groups of twenty ((to get our clothes)). Each given a sheet of items, which were ticked thereon as we received them.
A.T.S girls and others were in attendance at each counter. Got large grip, small blue Red Cross bag with lovely odds and ends inside; dressing-gown, nightie, green coat, brown skirt and jumper, grey gloves and scarf, corsets ((!!)), stockings, 2 sets underwear, and lovely shoes. ((All these items were new, whereas what we'd received in Colombo were secondhand.))
I have bad styes.
Laval executed.