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, 8 March 2014

warm sun, bees buzzing, more tutes, getting strength back, eagle and child, blackcurrant mild, sawlogs

















Yesterday I ate my sandwich hastily, reading up for the next meeting between munches, in St Giles' churchyard en route from the Latin American Centre to the Radcliffe Science Library.

It was the first time this spring that there had been real warmth in the sun. I looked up at the blossom on a cherry tree and there were bees buzzing.

A grey start today with some fine rain but it's nevertheless significantly warmer and there is a much more hopeful feel to the air.

Earlier, when I walked up the garden to the woodshed, the frogs were already swimming about in the pond - and this was 5.45 am.

In Oxford now for the last assignment tutes.

A nice end to a working week that has been frantically busy - something not helped by me feeling under the weather still. Though since Thursday I've been getting my strength back.

Met up with friends at the Eagle and Child after work last night. A lovely evening. Delicious venison, pork and red wine sausages - accompanied by blackcurrant mild (surprisingly good).

Photo of sawlogs taken on the Oxford canal about an hour ago.
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