Month: September 2017

Sunday 11 September 1664 (Lord’s day). Up and to church in the best manner I have gone a good while, that is to say, with my wife, and her woman, Mercer, along with us, and Tom, my boy, waiting on us. A dull sermon....This afternoon, it seems, Sir J. Minnes fell sicke at church, and going down the gallery stairs fell down dead, but came to himself again and is pretty well. No point in panicking...

Saturday 10 September 1664 ....Dined at home, and then my wife and I and Mercer to the Duke’s house, and there saw “The Rivalls,” which is no excellent play, but good acting in it; especially Gosnell comes and sings and dances finely, but, for all that, fell out of the key, so that the musique could not play to her afterwards, and so did Harris also go out of the tune to agree with her..... This...

Friday 9 September 1664 After a difficult dinner party Pepys relaxes with his wife and family 'singing and fiddling' ..and so back again home, and there my wife and Mercer and Tom and I sat till eleven at night, singing and fiddling, and a great joy it is to see me master of so much pleasure in my house, that it is and will be still, I hope, a constant pleasure to me to be at home. The girle...

See previous entries for today. So, on in the pouring rain with lovely blue sky beyond. We stopped at Batcombe, which comes from Saxon and means 'Bat's Valley'.  Nearby is an iron age fort which possibly dates back to the Bronze Age.  We entered the porch to find a locked door, an empty church without even a sign of the Ride and Stride day advertised on the leaflet. We were subsequently told...

You need to have read today's previous installment to understand the context. ...We obtained a leaflet inviting us to tour round some old churches - average 'age'- 600 years. What could be more boring than that. Little did we know who we would bump in to. Martin Buber (1878-1965) was a Jewish philosopher, theologian, story-teller, and teacher who said 'all real living is meeting'. We could also...

Thursday 8 September 1664  ...My wife this afternoon being very well dressed by her new woman, Mary Mercer, a decayed merchant’s daughter that our Will helps us to, did go to the christening of Mrs. Mills, the parson’s wife’s child, where she never was before... What a luxury to have a dresser. I recall that Selfridges in London had a fashion adviser who would without obligation give advice...