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.

Monday, 23 April 2012

aldermaston, stories, lustre, nano-tech, quince

Had lunch with Alan and Charlotte at near Aldermaston yesterday.

Fantastic drive between Wantage and the A34, cross-country, particularly on the way back when the view from Farnborough was even more dramatic than usual, April showers swinging over the Thames Valley like chain curtains.

Farnborough is the highest point on the Berkshire Downs and the view is said to be the one Hardy had in mind when, in Jude the Obscure, Jude sees Christminster, shimmering in the valley, for the first time.

Alan was at school with Dad. He founded the wonderful Aldermaston Pottery, a fictional version of which features in Invisible.

The pace of our time at Alan and Charlotte's home was gentle and relaxing and the conversation stimulating and fun. Lots of wonderful stories about people and trips to different parts of the world with exhibitions of lustre pottery.

Loved hearing about the three Umbrian lustre towns and Alan and Charlotte's trip to one of them for a recent lecture. (The importance of the ancient lustre technique to current nano-technology research was a revelation.)

At one point talk turned to the subject of theatre critics. Alan told us about a friend, one of whose plays had been savaged. The friend had lamented, 'Don't they understand how hard it is to write even a bad play.'

Before leaving with a dozen bantam eggs, we went into Alan and Charlotte's garden and looked at the old apple trees and the quince that was coming into blossom and is shown above.

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