Actually no rain today : calm + mild but no sunshine + no drouth1. Roads execrable, they are getting worse + worse: cycled to Beechwood, Yarrowford, Whinfield, Dunsdale + Faldonside = 18.7 [miles]. Helen [Muir] was at Mauldsheugh for tea + Isa Graham2 came to dinner + the two of them went to a theatrical performance in the Victoria Hall. David [Graham] also went.
1 Drouth, n. and v. Also drooth, drowth, †druth. Sc. forms and usages of Eng. drought. The forms drouth and drowth are now only in dial. or poet. use in Eng. Cf. Drocht. [druθ Sc., but Gall. + drʌuθ]; though it is probably best know in Scots language and literature but not exclusively so – it is used in Thomas Hardy’s poem of new love ‘After The Visit’ which is cut down here but posted in full in the following post “Come again to the place | Where your presence was as a leaf that skims | Down a drouthy way whose ascent bedims | The bloom on the farer’s face.”
2 Isa Graham was Dr David Charteris Graham’s sister, see diary entry for 4 April 1920
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/23, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1920]
