Comart Public Holiday stock checks as I review the mail and comfort Debbie on another very windy day as the Western Nations consider pulling out of Beirut

Up a little late but pleased to receive a newspaper for the first time this year. At last breakfast of toast and fruit juice and, after a wash and shave, to dress and make ready for a morning at the office. I arrive after 9.00am and although a Public Holiday, John Lamb and David Wood are in to do a half-yearly stock check. The offices cold after the seasonal break, a fan heater provides heat sufficient for me to sort out my papers against tomorrow and complete my personal expense claims for the months of November and December.

A veritable heap of mail has arrived and I carry it in five journeys to the conference room to clear the reception area and provide easier work for the secretaries tomorrow. Home by 1.00pm for a simple lunch, poorly prepared as Di is still spending more time in bed than out of it. An afternoon intending to work but forced to spend watching television and comforting Deborah. The poor lass is ever more spotty with Chicken Pox and finds it difficult to be irritated but resist the urge to scratch the spots and make them worse. Eventually she falls to sleep on my lap until Diana wakes up and prepares tea of pork pie salad and Christmas cake. A lazy evening but managed to catch up on some business reading from my visit to the office and also minute the last review meeting of 1983. The weather today ever more windy and wet and a lot colder than of late. News today of mounting pressure on the United States to pull out of Lebanon. France has already withdrawn 500 troops from Beirut. At Sandringham, the Queen has asked for journalists to be withdrawn; and our wind is affecting the entire country.