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.

Wednesday, 27 August 2014

straw stacks, cold, too autumnal?, donnington gold, fox inn, great barrington

















Out early on the bike because I was catching up on some work today.

Sun was out when I took the photo above of stacks of straw beside Calcroft Lane but now it's gone indoors and it's grey and cold in west Oxfordshire.

Seriously tempted to light a fire but resisting this. It would be too autumnal, wouldn't it?

Lovely walk yesterday around the Barrington Park Estate before stopping at the Fox at Great Barrington for a delicious pint of Donnington Gold. I remember coming across the Donnington brewery in its little Cotswold valley in the late 70s when I was a land agent and thinking how beautiful it was. Such a romantic setting. The firm I worked for used to look after some land owned by the brewery's proprietor.

Shame to have missed FoxStock 2014 by a day, though. Didn't realise it was on.
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