To my great joy I found on opening my bicycle bag my pocket case of instruments which I had given up for lost1.
Fine morning with S.W. wind: after breakfast at 9 read Herald: cleaned my bicycle: walked to Ayr + called for Thos. Hardie2 + took him a Selkirk Bannock: walked round by the station: got 3 of Laing Waugh’s books3 for Rennie4 + walked home to dinner at 2.15. Started for a cycle run but only got 4 miles on the way to Tarbolton5 when rain came on + I turned, putting on my cape. Had a hot bath. Wrote a card to Helen6 + posted some medicine [?] cards to Hawick and Gala. Went to bed early. It was raining heavily B.S.A. 7.4.7
1 Dr Muir had previously mentioned searching for his pocket set of instruments
2 Thomas Hardie may conceivably be Thomas Anderson Alexander Hardie (1881-), skinner, living at Mill Street, Ayr in 1925 (the 1921 Census should be helpful here); born at Pinegrove, Selkirk he may have been one of the 3366 babies Dr Muir helped bring into the world [sources: 1881 Hardie, Thomas Anderson, Statutory registers Births 778/ 89, page 30 of 83 and 1925 Valuation Roll VR000700059-/64, Ayr Burgh, page 64 of 265]
3 Joseph Laing Waugh (1868–1928), Scottish businessman and author, born Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, he moved to Edinburgh and ran a wallpaper business and wrote ‘And A Little Child Shall Lead Them, A Dumfriesshire story’, 1896, ‘Thornhill and Its Worthies’, 1905, ‘Robbie Doo’, 1912, ‘Robert Burns: A Poem’, 1912, ‘Cracks Wi’ Robbie Doo’, 1914, ‘Betty Grier’, 1915, ‘Cute McCheyne and Other Stories’, 1917, and ‘Heroes in Homespun’, 1921
4 The Reverend James Rennie (1826-1924), Church of Scotland minister and widower of Catherine Stewart Muir, thus Dr Muir’s brother-in-law; living at Prestwick, Ayrshire
5 Tarbolton, South Ayrshire, east of Prestwick, grid reference NGR NS429,270 and on a road just north of the Mauchline route that Dr Muir probably took on his way over from Selkirk
6 Helen Frances ‘Mousey’ Muir (1880-1963), Dr Muir’s third daughter and sometime housekeeper
7 It is not immediately clear what B.S.A. stands for (it is clearer in Dr Muir’s diary entry for 7 March 2022)
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/25, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1922]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 