Although some of the pavements were wet it was not a true thaw + the snow lay thick everywhere. I had a nice walk to call on Jessie Boyd1 + found the roads quite good except on the Faldonside brae. Jessie gave me a glass of Cherry Brandy. She tells me Dees2 is to be buried tomorrow. It was very sad that a fine bit of Stilton [?] arrived from Mr + Mrs Dees. Wrote Mrs Dees3 again. Got letters from John McDougall4 + W B Hunter.5 That awful ass Nurse Robertson6 from Beechwood called.
1 Jessie Milne Brack Boyd (1867-1961), of Faldonside, plantswoman and gardener.
2 Robert Irwin Dees (1872-1923), landed proprietor, formerly a marine engineer, had died 25 December 1923 at Faldonside.
3 Edith Mary Boileau Dees née Henderson (1872-1948), wife of Robert Irwin Dees.
4 John Aymers MacDougall (1844-1928), born Galashiels, qualified M.D. at Edinburgh in 1865 so would have been a medical student there at the same time as Dr Muir (M.B., Ch.B. 1867). By 1923 he was living at Balerno, Midlothian.
5 W B Hunter may be a medic (though the Editor cannot match him to the Medical Directory) but is otherwise unidentified.
6 Nurse Robertson is unidentified. She must have succeeded one – or two – of Elsie Morison Simpson (1890-1926) and Margaret Henderson Sharp (1885-), both nurses, both recorded at Beechwood in the 1921 Census.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/26, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1923]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 