Welcome to justthoughtsnstuff

I started posting to jtns on 20 February 2010 with just one word, 'Mosaic'. This seemed an appropriate introduction to a blog that would juxtapose fragments of memoir and life-writing. Since 1996, I'd been coming to terms with the consequences of emotional and economic abuse that had begun in childhood, and which, amongst other things, had sought to stifle self-expression. While I'd explored some aspects of my life through fiction and, to a lesser extent, journalism, it was only in 2010 that I felt confident enough to write openly about myself. I believed this was an important part of the healing process. Yet within weeks, the final scenes of my family's fifty-year nightmare started to play themselves out and the purpose of the blog became one of survival through writing. Although some posts are about my family's suffering - most explicitly, Life-Writing Talk, with Reference to Trust: A family story - the majority are about happier subjects (including, Bampton in rural west Oxfordshire, where I live, Oxford, where I work, the seasons and the countryside, walking and cycling) and I hope that these, together with their accompanying photos, are enjoyable and positive. Note: In February 2020, on jtns' tenth birthday, I stopped posting to this blog. It is now a contained work of life-writing about ten years of my life. Frank, 21 February 2020.

New blog: morethoughtsnstuff.com.

Sunday 26 February 2017

snowdrops and aconites, not to mention marsh marigolds, first plotting, mixed feelings about a felled eucalyptus, bs johnson at the finborough, hockney and the nashes





Lovely to see the snowdrops and aconites appearing in the garden and on the verges when I'm walking to work in Oxford and cycling at the weekend. Not to mention the marsh marigolds in the ditches along Calcroft Lane, near Clanfield!

First working half-hour or so on the allotment this year earlier. Pruning blackcurrants. The cut wood smelling of the juice of the fruit. Also harvested some leeks and, after a late breakfast, went to the shed to fetch Desiree spuds from their sack that hangs from the rafters.

Had mixed feelings about the felling of the eucalyptus that overshadowed our plot. It has provided welcome shade from the sun over the years and, now, the allotment field feels awfully bare without it. Yet its roots or its leaves - people tell you different things - was killing the ground.

Just had a heads up from a friend that her productions of three plays by the astonishing, magnificent BS Johnson are on at the Finborough Theatre in March. A terrific prospect!

Wonderful memories of seeing the Hockney exhibition at the Tate a fortnight ago. Went straight from that into the Nash retrospective. The former uplifted, the latter perplexed and fascinated but never quite did it for me. I in any case prefer the work of Nash's brother John. I have a suspicion that this makes me a lightweight - but so be it!

No comments:

Post a Comment