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, 18 July 2015

allotment, cool and fresh, weeding, courgettes, spuds, eucalyptus, common enchanter's nightshade, witchipedia



















Cycled to the allotment early, when the air was still wonderfully cool and fresh.

Did some hoeing, weeding and watering. We should be getting our first courgettes very soon. I'm not sure of the variety of the flower in the photo. I kept a record of the varieties of all the plants apart from the first five. It's likely to be an Italian variety, though.

The spuds are suffering in the dry weather and some are dying back because of the effects of a eucalyptus tree planted on the other side of the shed...

When we were away in Wiltshire we came across some wild flowers we hadn't identified before. One had this wonderful name: Common Enchanter's Nightshade. While the Woodlands.co.uk page that I've linked to has some excellent photos and good info, I was intrigued to find an entry on the plant on Witchipedia - 'the online encyclopedia of witchcraft, paganism and the occult'!
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