Global Studio Exhibition at the Bluecoat, Liverpool 2010
‘Walking Dreaming Thinking’
In the Footsteps of Virginia Woolf - Walking from Monks House to Charleston
Summer 2009
Thursday October 17th 1940
The light is now fading. Soon the siren: then the twang of plucked strings… But it’s almost forgettable still the nightly operation on the tortured London. We go up tomorrow. A mist is rising; a long fleece of white on the marshes. I must black out. I had so much to say.
…Now the unpleasant part begins. Who’ll be killed tonight? not us, I suppose.
…The idea is, accumulate notes. Oh, and I’ve mastered the iron curtain for my brain. Down I shut when I’m tied tight. No reading, no writing. No claims, no “must”. I walk - yesterday in the rain over the Piddinghoe Down - a new line.
Sunday November 3rd 1940
Yesterday the river burst its banks…Water broken, white, roaring, pouring down through the gap by the pillbox.
Tuesday November 5th 1940
…When I look up I see all the marsh water. In the sun deep blue, gullls caraway seeds: snowstorms; Atlantic floor: yellow islands: leafless trees: red cottage roofs. Oh may the flood last forever. A virgin lip: no bungalows; as it was in the beginning. Now it’s lead grey with the red leaves in front. Our inland sea.
Sunday March 8th 1941
I mark Henry James’ sentence: observe perpetually. Observe the oncoming of age. Observe greed. Observe my own despondency. By that means it becomes serviceable. Or so I hope. I insist upon spending this time to the best advantage. I will go down with my colours flying.
“A Writer’s Diary: being extracts from the diary of Virginia Woolf ” edited by Leonard Woolf, The Hogarth Press, London, 1953
