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 27 March 2016

sunlight, fleeting storm clouds, 'a flying day', katherine mansfield society, bluebells, marsh marigolds, happy easter!!!



The threatened rain held off this morning and I enjoyed cycling. True, the return journey, being blown back along the Clanfield road by the gale, was better than the one out, but the sunlight, sometimes broken by fleeting storm clouds, was always wonderful.

The weather made me think of Katherine Mansfield's short story Bank Holiday and the lines: 'It is a flying day, half sun, half wind. When the sun goes in a shadow flies over; when it comes out again it is fiery.' Which must have been about a day that occurred later in the year, though this morning there was real warmth in the sun.

(While looking for a copy of the Mansfield story, I came across the Katherine Mansfield Society website, which looks well worth a visit.)

The bluebells are in flower at the top of the garden beyond the pond and the marsh marigolds are out in the ditch alongside Calcroft Lane.

Happy Easter!!!
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