11 April, in the year of our Lord 2020
Up, and after breakfast to Jervas the barber for a new periwig. Gesticulating for me to stay put with one hand, his mouth hidden by the other, he did throw me a wig from across the shop, saying he did not want to catch anything. I countered that I knew exactly what he meant since his last wig was full of nits, so tossed it back with faux cheer and ‘Here, catch this!’ and sure enough he did. Bought nothing, but felt it prudent to cleanse my hands with a jell purchased at the Exchange. Home, the street empty; but when I did raise my eyes to admire my house, alarmed by great cracks in the plasterwork, which I presume from The Fire, enough to disturb me for the integrity of the house.
After dinner, a reply from Mr. M. Jones, a good friend, to whom I had proposed that these times offer ample opportunitie for some Do It Himselfe, but the opportunitie that interests him most is for himselfe not doing it and it is manifest in Procrastination, he procuring excuses from a seeming endless list, to wit: it is going dark, going a bit cold, he needs his tea, he wants not to tire himselfe out, he hath done enough for one day, he might not have all he needs, there’s the dog to think about, he is no longer sure about the colour, that last time he did something like this he did nearly hurt himselfe and, more perplexing than any, that ‘his curve hath not yet flattened’, which last I understood not at all, but felt was born of desperation or gin.
After supper news that The First Lord of the Treasury hath lately been into St. Tho. Hospitalle wherein he hath received Entensive Care. I am glad, for though I think him a charlatan who doth hide vacuity behind a glib facility, I cannot find it in me to wish him ill. And so to bed.
Pepys: the Covid Diaries (2020- ) 