Lay long, and then up and to my Lord of Oxford’s, but his Lordshipp was in bed at past ten o’clock: and, Lord helpe us! so rude a dirty family I never saw in my life. He sent me out word my business was not done, but should against the afternoon.
I thence to the Coffee-house, there but little company, and so home to the ‘Change, where I hear of some more of our ships lost to the Northward. So to Sir W. Batten’s, but he was set out before I got thither. I sat long talking with my lady, and then home to dinner. Then come Mr. Moore to see me, and he and I to my Lord of Oxford’s, but not finding him within Mr. Moore and I to “Love in a Tubb,” which is very merry, but only so by gesture, not wit at all, which methinks is beneath the House.
So walked home, it being a very hard frost, and I find myself as heretofore in cold weather to begin to burn within and pimples and pricks all over my body, my pores with cold being shut up.
So home to supper and to cards and to bed.
the dirt was our ship
lost beneath the frost
I find myself in cold weather
begin to burn all over
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 4 January 1665.