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 3 March 2014

water subsiding, moss and lichens, stop-go spring, corrected edition of a conscious englishman, oclw podcasts, birds' nests


















The flood waters are subsiding, although grass and crops look sick and moss and lichens are thriving on gates, walls and trees.

Days alternate between beautiful spring sunshine and more heavy showers.

This stop-go spring raises the spirits then lowers them.

Some sort of low-grade flu the past week hasn't helped matters.

Still, good things are happening.  Working on the corrected edition of Margaret Keeping's A Conscious Englishman, which StreetBooks will be publishing very soon.

I was also delighted to receive an email on Friday reminding me of the Oxford Centre for Life-Writing podcast archive. There are lots of treats to be had and soon this term's Weinrebe Lectures will be added, so you will be able to listen to that Teddy St Aubyn interview.

Top photo btw shows two birds' nests from our garden, which now live in a basket in the passage between the kitchen and sitting-room. There was lovely spring sunlight streaming through the windows that day - Saturday.
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