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, 16 March 2013

cold, wet, brightbox good but 3g useless, disputed land, a conscious englishman, maconochie, multitrack



















House is really chilly today, even though the central heating is on. The east wind whizzes through the ground floor from outside door to outside door. I'm maybe also tired from a busy week. Plus I got soaked cycling this morning. As the above photo shows, the floods are back. It doesn't take much to top up the water table it seems.

Looking forward to catching up on some sleep tomorrow and the early part of the week. Time off. Yippee.

Meanwhile, EE's new wireless router arrived this morning--a BrightBox. Have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I imagined myself spending hours setting the thing up, much of the time trying to get hold of the support centre. But all was fine--really easy to install and much easier to connect to with the computer than the old one. Signal strength in furthest away parts of the house is much better too. If only I could be as positive about the experience of EE's 3G coverage in parts of west Oxfordshire--between Standlake and Eynsham especially. The signal is far worse now than it was before Christmas.

Continuing to enjoy Tim Pears' Disputed Land. It's a joy to read. Even managed to stay awake long enough to read five or so pages every night this week. A rare occurrence these days. OK, 'stay awake' is a bit of an exaggeration--the book does have crumpled corners from when it fell onto the floor as I dozed off--but each time I started reading again and got to the end of the next section. Must be good.

Talking of good books (A Conscious Englishman), do have a look at author Margaret Keeping's Wednesday blog post, which not only has a recipe for 'Making good, fresh Maconochie' (a First World War soup prepared by British soldiers in the trenches--well, not necessarily to everyone's taste) but, under 'Publishing news' (at the bottom of the page), a lovely quote from Robert Macfarlane and mention of enquiries about foreign rights.

Lastly (but not leastly, I hope), I've posted a draft of the first chapter of my new novel on my website. The working title is, Multitrack.
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