A very fine day: clear + bright with a pretty strong W.N.W. wind. David [Graham, co-partner], who was up at Blackhouse1 in the early morning attending Mrs Allan Crozier, said there was some heavy rain. I cycled to Ashybank [and] Yair + came back by Forest [?] Mill at 12 o’clock. Then saw Mrs Mabon + old Mrs Miller + went at the books. I was very little disturbed. Wrote Helen [Muir] + Boylan2. The latter is at St Leonard’s [Sussex] + wanted to know if he might bathe. Got a pork pie + a kind note from the “Magic Cave”3.
1 Blackhouse, above Dryhope, approximate grid reference NGR NT280,272
2 John Dun Boylan (1850-1924) civil engineer and egotistical friend of Dr Muir, sometime resident of Shawmount, Selkirk
3 It has to be a reasonable assumption that the ‘Magic Cave’ refers to Elm Park or its resident Agnes Mackintosh née Watson, formerly Harper (1859-1946), widowed for the third time by 1919 and living at Elm Park, Selkirk; she had been showering Dr Muir with food parcels for a while by August 1919
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/22, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1919]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 