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, 24 February 2013

twickenham, old boys match, freezing, snowdrops, hedging




















Excellent afternoon at Twickenham yesterday, watching the England-France match. My first time at the stadium--wonderful atmosphere but unbelievable to think that there might have been as many as 82,000 people there. In the taxi back to Bampton from Witney last night, the driver asked what the stadium's capacity was and as I said the figure, I thought, I must have got that wrong, it can't be that many. But it is!

I used to play rugby when I was at Heatherdown and Stowe but didn't continue with it after school, apart from an old boys match when I was about twenty (a game that almost finished me off--a year or so of student life had left me as unfit as anything).

Another striking thing about yesterday's game was how straightforward and giving the crowd were. Just 82,000 people out to enjoy themselves!

Meanwhile, it's freezing in the west Oxfordshire countryside. A cold easterly wind that seemed to modify its direction with every turn I made when cycling this morning so that I was always heading into it. Lots of snowdrops out, though, including the ones above on a verge just outside Black Bourton. The hedging and tree cutting at Alvescot continues.
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. Margaret Keeping25 February 2013 at 18:04

    I liked your Twickers blog very much; might send you privately my 'rugby' poem - one of the very few I had published though now I wouldn't expose myself to that degree!
    I hope there's some proper hedging going on at Alvescot.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)