Up and with my father towards my house, and by the way met with Lieut. Lambert, and with him to the Dolphin in Tower Street and drank our morning draught, he being much troubled about his being offered a fourth rate ship to be Lieutenant of her now he has been two years Lieutenant in a first rate.
So to the office, where it is determined that I should go to-morrow to Portsmouth.
So I went out of the office to Whitehall presently, and there spoke with Sir W. Pen and Sir George Carteret and had their advice as to my going, and so back again home, where I directed Mr. Hater what to do in order to our going to-morrow, and so back again by coach to Whitehall and there eat something in the buttery at my Lord’s with John Goods and Ned Osgood.
And so home again, and gave order to my workmen what to do in my absence.
At night to Sir W. Batten’s, and by his and Sir W. Pen’s persuasion I sent for my wife from my father’s, who came to us to Mrs. Turner’s, where we were all at a collacion to-night till twelve o’clock, there being a gentlewoman there that did play well and sang well to the Harpsicon, and very merry we were.
So home and to bed, where my wife had not lain a great while.
I bled red years in the mine.
I went out of the present, going back and back.
In my absence, the clock sang to my wife.
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Monday 29 April 1661.