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, 8 July 2013

day off, heatwave, andy murray, dancing tadpoles, blue and white crops, proper summer

Lovely walk through the fields to the south of Bampton earlier. Day off today.

Amazing heatwave in the UK at the moment that's set to last for the rest of July, if the forecasts are to be believed.

Sitting at the top of the garden in the blazing sun yesterday was a great way to listen to Wimbledon and to hear the moment when Andy Murray became champion! I swear the tadpoles in our pond were dancing.

A couple of interesting crops in the photos above--both taken this morning in the Thames Valley near what used to be RAF Bampton Castle. The blue crop is linseed and the white one is some sort of mix that's planted to provide game cover. There are quite a few fields of linseed in the valley this year because the spring floods meant that there was no chance to get the corn planted and presumably linseed can be sown fairly late in the year and still ripen in good time.

Great to have a proper summer! It hasn't been like this since the end of May last year, when I was in San Francisco (colleagues enjoyed telling me that it was way hotter in the UK!).
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