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.

Wednesday 22 September 2010

somerset

Had a lovely three nights away at The Three Horseshoes, Batcombe, Somerset (http://www.thethreehorseshoesinn.co.uk). A great, friendly pub (with terrific beer, cider and food) in a beautiful setting, with amazing walks--lots of old cart tracks and green lanes.

More photos to follow but for now some pics of wild flowers, including montbretia (orange flower), which I can't remember having seen anywhere else--though I'm told I once saw it in Scotland.

I hope to post more regularly again now. The last few months have seen the preparations for the StreetBooks edition of Invisible--but also some very shocking family problems which have brought back some dreadful memories that I thought were long gone. It brought back many of the feelings that I referred to on the Scrapbook page of my website last year and which I thought I'd got over. How wrong one can be.

I think, though, that, with J's help--and with that of her family--I've managed to get things into some sort of perspective now. At the very least I realise that I can't change certain members of my family, nor their perennially bizarre and hurtful behaviour.

Nicer to think of wild flowers instead.

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