Under Siege XVIII: Jemimah Puddledove

I am very proud to announce that our nesting guest, Sydney, has finally hatched her egg! Jemimah Puddledove has, I think, been hatched for the last few days, but Sydney has only really left her for any length of time today so we could see her. She has actually been sitting on Jemimah for the last couple of days in my opinion because a) JP is quite fully fledged and b) she looks a bit messy and squashed. If anyone can shed any light as to whether doves are in the habit of sitting on their young, please do so. My theory is that despite being hard of hearing, Sydney is actually acutely aware that there is a war on, and so she is protecting her chick. I have a picture which is going to be very hard for my middle sister and Rich to see as the chick is even smaller and better camouflaged than Sydney. I will try to upload it, but the computer is taking ages at the moment which is why there are no pictures of the evacuation or Beirut up either.

Workwise I am still compiling a list of British Citizens left in the country. I estimate that there are around 1000 left - around 3000 left on our ships, and probably another 2000 left by other means. Trying to contact these people is not easy. Most only had Lebanese mobiles which often do not work outside the country. So there have been many shouted conversations with often bemused relatives and my schoolgirl Arabic has been dusted off a little bit. 'INTA BI LUBNAN AU FI'L KHARIJ?' I am often heard to shout (ARE YOU IN LEBANON OR ABROAD?). Anyway, we are getting there and hopefully by next week we will have a better idea of where people are. I thought there were about 15,000 Brits here - as did most of the media.

Last night we went out with a couple of our Lebanese friends who are still in the country - Mayssoun and Fadi - we went to Kayan which is a bar that is normally rammed and not that nice, but has now turned into a very chilled out bar that gave us all a free Tiramisu shot - fab! Mayssoun and Fadi had to leave their house which is very close to the southern suburbs and only have ventured back once to get a change of clothes. They said that going back to their area was really weird - although no buildings have been damaged, the area is completely deserted and it really feels like a ghost town. If anyone is interested in what the southern suburbs of Beirut looked like on the 22nd July - bear in mind that more bombing has happened since - go to http://www.digitalglobe.com/images/qb/beirut_harat_july22_2006_dgwm.jpg
This area is very close to Dom's colleague Wissam - in fact she can see her apartment on the picture. Thankfully it is fine but you can see quite clearly where entire buildings have been demolished. The small buildings in the bottom right corner are part of one of the Palestinan camps (Bourj Al Barajni) and most of the bombing seems to be near that area, although not in it.

The charity I used to work for, IOCC, have started an appeal to help Lebanese who have lost their homes in the bombings. They're currently distributing food parcels to those who have been displaced. I had a chat with my former boss today - he's just managed to get in from Jordan (a 12 hour precarious journey) and he is working hard to coordinate all the work going on. The website has some pictures on: www.iocc.org. Another worthwhile cause is the Lebanese Red Cross - we'll give more details of how to donate soon.

Better go - I have just confused the noise of a rubbish truck with a low flying aircraft so clearly my judgement is getting askew...