No one perhaps has ever felt passionately towards a lead pencil. But there are circumstances in which it can become supremely desirable to possess one; moments when we are set upon having an object, an excuse for walking half across London between tea and dinner.

Virginia Woolf walked London's parks for inspiration, and to find solace from her dark moods. Seventy years after her great-aunt's death, Emma Woolf argues that you can still find her restless spirit there (The Independent).