(Lord’s day). My pill I took last night worked very well, and I lay long in bed and sweat to get away the itching all about my body from head to foot, which is beginning again as it did the last winter, and I find after I am up that it is abated. I staid at home all day and my wife also, whom, God forgive me, I staid along with me for fear of her seeing of Pembleton. But she and I entertained one another all day long with great pleasure, contriving about my wife’s closet and the bedchamber, whither we intend to go up she and I to-day.
We dined alone and supped also at night, my brother John with us, and so to prayers and to bed.
I work and sweat to get away
itching
all foot and fin
I am who I fear seeing
in my closet at night
Erasure poem derived from The Diary of Samuel Pepys, Sunday 6 September 1663.