“Keep moving because it is the journey, not the destinations, that count.”
Overall, I do not think that people live their lives sequentially, as scientists and medics will say. Both body and mind move through stages such that some are fearful as children but bold in old age or reclusive in youth and community driven in mid life. We are “transforming selves” as I try to illustrate in my book of this title.
An example of this belief in action is my recent trip to the U.K. in April, 2026. I decided to shape some of my trip around one of my favourite writers, Virginia Woolf, the subject of my master’s thesis and course work.
Most people outside literary circles identify Virginia Woolf through the play and movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton cast in a troubled marriage.
But for those who do not read modernist fiction of the early twentieth century, Virginia Woolf was a brilliant novelist and essayist who part of a literary circle called the Bloomsbury Group. Now a clearly identified part of central London, Bloomsbury contains many echoes and memorabilia of Woolf, her sister Vanessa Bell, and other writers and artists.
As a traveller, I like to start with research questions. While on this recent holiday, I chose to stay at the Tavistock Hotel, where Woolf once lived. It now has a pub called the Woolf and Whistle. In the back of my mind was the query: how is the Bloomsbury Group now viewed?
Many scholars and readers have concluded that Woolf and her group were elitist, esoteric, and far removed by race, class, and education from ordinary people. The squares they frequented (such as Gordon or Tavistock) were gated and enclosed by iron railings, some of which were temporarily removed to be used in armaments of World War One. Today’s commentators point to the positive fact that the squares show a desire for flowers, trees, and grass in urban environments.
In the trip as a whole, the intent of tracing Woolf’s life and works was a bit ambitious, even though I have given a paper on Woolf’s diaries and joined the international Virginia Woolf Society. I needed to narrow my trip theme.
However, a number of uncanny synchronicities occurred. In the first bookstore I went to in Bloomsbury, I found a book study within twenty minutes that revealed the talky aspect of the Bloomsbury Group; the philosophers and artists kept odd daily hours, rebelled against the Establishment, but were not activists. An exception to that might be the women’s movement of a slightly earlier time.
After two days in the British Museum, near Bloomsbury, I appreciated that the famous reading room where Karl Marx and Virginia Woolf read and wrote is now being remodelled as an exhibition of fashion and clothes through the ages. Indeed, to my way of thinking, the approach to time and history as presented in the British Museum, and even presented in Woolf’s fiction, is no longer admired.
The most amazing part of my Woolf quest, however, was in the area of St. Ives, Cornwall. After I checked into a well known landmark, The Badger Inn, I realized from a posted, framed essay about the l8th century pub, that Woolf as a young woman, had spent a Christmas alone in an upstairs room, two rooms down from the one where I was staying.
Another odd turn in my trip was locating the place in St. Ives where Woolf wrote To the Lighthouse. The location, now an apartment house, is close to the train and bus stations. Residents are complaining that the site is being taken down as part of village development.
To conclude, I want to leave you with a memory of seeing the Virginia Woolf statue in Bloomsbury. Like most of the tributes to her, it is not much advertised. You have to look closely to find traces of the past that are far away from today’s struggle for oil.
Dr. Alex Pett has taught English and communications in Canadian universities and colleges from coast to coast. She lives on Vancouver Island and commutes to Vancouver for face to face teaching and professional activities. Her interests are painting, researching, reading, writing, beach walking, and hiking.
See the list of below of what she could do for you:
