Sunday 22 November [1933]

I ought to have made a note on Nessa & the aeroplane last Friday—no Friday week at Croydon. We took them there at 7. Had to be up by moonlight at 6.30. Drove across an empty delicately tinted London; lines all much marked; Croydon a great space like a green race course. We stood on the top of the roof; saw the aeroplane whirl, till the propellors were lost to sight—simply evaporated: then the aeroplane takes a slow run, circles & rises. This is death I said, feeling how the human contact was completely severed. Up they went with a sublime air & disappeared like a person dying, the soul going. And we remained. I saw the plan become a little mark on the sky. And I did not at all enjoy waiting for Nessa to come back across the Alps: sat making conversation with Lady Simon. So thats over.

virginia woolf, diary