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, 28 July 2013

rain, first spuds, great brook, brandy bottle lilies



















Heavy rain yesterday evening meant there was little I could do on the allotment this morning, although I did lift our first spuds. The variety is Estima and while the potatoes are quite small there were a lot of them on each root. Given how late the spuds were planted this year, I was really pleased.

Afterwards, I went cycling. I've not been along the Great Brook, which parallels the Thames and flows into it at Shifford Lock, for some time because I've tended to work on the allotment then do the Mount Owen route. So it was great to see what's been happening in this part of the countryside. The stream is full of brandy bottle lily pads and flowers--like the ones in the photos, which I saw opposite the thatcher's reed bed.
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