Beach bum

In the morning to the Privy Seal to do some things of the last month, my Lord Privy Seal having been some time out of town. Then my wife came to me to Whitehall, and we went and walked a good while in St. James’s Park to see the brave alterations, and so to Wilkinson’s, the Cook’s, to dinner, where we sent for Mrs. Sarah and there dined and had oysters, the first I have eat this year, and were pretty good. After dinner by agreement to visit Mrs. Symonds, but she is abroad, which I wonder at, and so missing her my wife again to my mother’s (calling at Mrs. Pierce’s, who we found brought to bed of a girl last night) and there staid and drank, and she resolves to be going to-morrow without fail. Many friends come in to take their leave of her, but a great deal of stir I had again tonight about getting her to go to see my Lady Sandwich before she goes, which she says she will do tomorrow. So I home.

A seal came
for the oysters—
a good, broad bed—
and stayed
to stir sand.


Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Wednesday 4 September 1661.

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