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.

Saturday 28 April 2012

mud, holiday payback, oclw, sf, st

















Hum. The allotment remains no further forward than at the end of the week after Easter.

Whenever I've had a free moment it's been raining or the ground hasn't had time to dry out.

The scenes in the countryside have gone from drought to huge puddles and acres of mud. Presumably forecasters are right, though, when they say that the rain isn't soaking into the ground but running off the fields into the ditches and streams.

Today was, I thought, supposed to be pretty fine--no sign of this yet.

I've enjoyed this week. The one before was a rush, catching up after the holiday--the wages of taking a holiday are the dozens and dozens of emails in one's inbox when one gets back.

Sadly, no time to go to the first Trinity event at the Oxford Centre for Life Writing (OCLW)--though I hope very much to go to some in May and June.

Online course started this week and other teaching commitments are kicking off.

Looking forward to going to San Francisco for LASA at the end of next month.

(Earlier in the week we watched Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd on DVD--love Tim Burton's work but this one was a bit too gruesome for me...)

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