When I’m in England, many things I see have a connection to Virginia 
Woolf.
Yesterday, Lois Gilmore and I took a double decker bus tour of the city, passing the sights that meant so much to Woolf and her novels.
Of Woolf and words
Many of the sites we saw — from Westminster to the Cenotaph to the Tower Bridge to the River Thames — reminded us of Woolf and brought quotes from her writing to mind.
By afternoon, we made a long-anticipated visit to the Churchill War Rooms, where Churchill and his wartime staff planned and carried out the British response to Hitler and World War II.
From war to peace
Afterwards, I realized that visiting the war rooms was a fitting finale to my London trip before heading to the University of Kent in Canterbury tomorrow for the 28th Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf with its theme of “Virginia Woolf, Europe and Peace.”
Ironic and perfect all at once.
At the Churchill War Rooms
Alice Lowe
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[…] From rooms of war to a Woolf conference on peace […]
Reading your blog again today as often. I want to say thank you. Then I thought I want to say something to all the Woolf scholars who are with you in England (and elsewhere).I would not speak for all common readers but for me, without Woolf and her band of scholars I doubt I would have gotten through these last few years of seemingly unending chaos. Of America I am ashamed, but through the work of Woolves, both Virginia and Leonard, through visualizing their world, and through the understandings I draw from reading your studies I see that it is possible to see the wrongs and mis-directions and still hold close vestiges of pride in what rings for me a bell of uprightness and virtue somewhere in the past, perhaps again in the future. Nothing is ever what it seems; nothing matters and yes, everything matters this moment, this day in June.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Woolf’s clear thinking is definitely a comfort in these difficult times.