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 2012

spring!, long winter, ageing, john nash, tyres-some

















Amazing morning!

Had breakfast with the door to the garden open, after a lovely cycle ride through west Oxfordshire.

Got up early because I have a lot of work to do, writing up comments on assignments. Loved seeing how soon the daylight came--well before seven. And the evenings are light at six still. This last winter shouldn't have seemed so long (the 2010/11 one was way harsher) but it did to me. I think I aged several years.

But on a day like today, all is forgotten.

Photographed the patch of snowdrops in Black Bourton, the neighbouring village, and took the picture of the new ditch along the newly-laid hedge off Calcroft Lane (aka the Gated Road--the one without the gates) on my way home. The latter view made me think of John Nash's work. I spent many, many hours staring at the illustrations in John Nash: 'The delighted eye' by Allen Freer during the mid-to-late nineties and the early two-thousands. He is one of my favourite artists, if not my favourite. His views of often out-of-the-way corners of countryside, almost overlooked places, are magical and timeless.

Then there were the tyres along Calcroft Lane. Sad.
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