Freezing hard + a sharp N.W. wind : glass rising : so started off before 10 cycling to Dandswall, Curror Street, Forest Road, Ettrickhaugh Road, Firs1, Broadmeadows, Mount Benger + Crook Cottage.2 It was capital going but the wind got stronger + I encountered some snow showers, one especially a perfect blizzard, between Ettrick Kirk + Crook Cottage which I reached at 3.45 decidedly tired having had nothing since breakfast. Got a comfortable [?] tea. Found Mrs Johnstone rather better but still far from well. It was still snowing when I left at 4.35 + the road was covered with an inch of snow but the strong [wind] blew me along + I did the 7¼ to Crosslee in [text deleted] 30 to 35 minutes while I had taken 55 to do the same distance going up. Got home at 6.35. Had to go over to The Firs again to see Mrs Harper Smith whose temp. was 103. Went early to bed. Jean3 was out at a Sabbath School Teachers’ social. I cycled over 50 miles but on the way home near Singlie hillend [sic] the cyclometer4 stuck.
1 David Anderson Smith (1904-1976), had been born 13 January 1904 at The Firs, Selkirk, the son of Patrick ‘Pat’ Smith (1858-1930), advocate and sheriff-substitute, and Alice Smith née Paterson (1863-1943).
2 Mary Johnstone née Hewitson, wife of William Johnstone, roadman, living at Crook Cottage, Overkirkhope, Ettrick, with children and grandchildren. James Johnstone, one of her sons had been unwell too.
3 Jane Henderson Logan ‘Jean’ Muir (1877-1941), Dr Muir’s eldest daughter.
4 Dr Muir maybe in 1904 but certainly later used the Veeder Cyclometer (made at Hartford, Connecticut), a device that measured wheel revolutions and thus distance – though a cyclometer had to be purchased for each different size of bicycle wheel.
[Source: Scottish Borders Archives & Local History Service SBA/657/7, Dr J S Muir of Selkirk, medical practitioner, journal for 1904]
Rumbling Clint's Scottish Notes 