Sunday 27 October: Francesca Baker

On Saturday I think it’s Sunday and wander to Columbia Road to channel my inner Clarissa and buy my own flowers. It’s not, but I return with rye bread, which sets me up well for a day of flaneuring as a writer in residence at Bloomsbury Festival.

It’s a beautiful warm sunny autumn day. I’ve slept well, despite the clocks change – an impression twelve hours according to the Garmin stats. The sky is blue, and equally Dalloway-esque are the smoky trails suggesting playful pilots surfing in the sky.

I’ve a big day of potentials but am mainly here for the writing walk to discover and experience a blend of history, creativity and literary camaraderie. Breathe it all in. I find walking my most creative space. Ideas happen, plots form, problems unravel. Put on your headphones and walk around London like you’re in a music video. You’ll feel on top of the world.

On arriving at Blooms Cafe we’re asked to just write for 25 mins. No prompts. No stimulation. I write all day every day for work so my personal and creative writing has somewhat ceased and this feels daunting, but once the pencil starts scratching across the page, it’s freeing and things flow. My husband is sitting next to me, occasionally pausing to sip his latte. A book lover, poetry devourer, he’s the most well-read and intelligent man I’ve ever met, yet I’ve never seen him write. I tease him by peering over to see inside the pages of his notebook and he shies away. It feels deeply intimate. Writing strands this liminal space of making the thoughts in your head and feelings in your heart somehow concrete on the page, may be or maybe not for others to see. And usually these days with temptation of the press of a DELETE button.

The coffee cup full of liquid designed to invigorate me for the next ninety mins appears to have holes in and leaves a brown pool on the table. The smell of garlic from lunchtime pizzas is somewhat assaulting. The woman sharing our booth of sofas appears desperately affronted at the fact that I read the event descriptions and packed my notebook while she has resorted to typing shopping lists on her phone, which I imagine is what a busy Clarissa preparing for a party would do.

On arrival at Russell Square we see the bust of Virginia Woolf, stood proudly amid the fallen burnt orange leaves. We’re asked if we know her work. Half of us are obsessed with her work.

We next hit Scoobs, the oldest second hand bookshop in London, and my eyes light up at a wall of orange Penguin books. Iconic. As a child I loved designing book covers as much as I loved writing the stories within. Gays The Word is an LGBT bookstore that is a community space that has been targeted by closed minded idiots over the years, and fought back. That feels like another thing about writers. They kick out, rebel, challenge things. Rather than just accept, they make a stand in a small way, thinking things through and channelling them in a different way. At Judds, specialists in arts and social sciences, I pretend to be interested in a hefty tome on the Later Stages of Evolution of Igenous Rocks. I am not. But I love that someone is interested enough to devote months or even years of their life to write about it. As well as creative energy I think the thing I am most impressed of intimidated about by writers is their bulldog tenacity and commitment to show up everyday at the page. It’s brave.

We’re also treated to a blue plaque at Mary and Percy Shelley’s old house. It’s now a salad shop, and I feel she would not be impressed.

A few more streets, and we end at the British Library, which Andy says looks remarkably like a Post Office. Also a place of words. Both literary institutions in their own way.

We leave, and embark on more, seeing stories of students, inspirational women from around the world, and some closed library doors. There are closet university campuses, beautiful old mews, sweeping trees and I feel like we’re in a little piece of London that despite visiting every few weeks, I rarely breathe in.

‘So many squares’ remarks Andy after we’ve hit Bloomsbury, Gordon, Russell, Brunswick, Red Lion. And we and literature lovers throughout history have moved through them. Inhaling this glorious city in.

We debrief over a drink. More words flow. A lovely literary afternoon.

But perhaps most preciously, I am left with my own writing resolution.

A word win.

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