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.

Friday, 25 March 2016

twenty-four hour flu, strange days, forward, ladybird, shaky fence, wolf hall


That twenty-four hour flu that affected colleagues during Hilary term finally got me on Wednesday. Well, at least I didn't have to work in the attic, sorting through papers that day!

It has been a strange few days, though, sorting-wise. I've gone through files that have been stashed since we arrived here. And other docs and papers that I stopped sorting around the time of my parents' bankruptcy.

That was when all time stopped, really. Perhaps it is only now that things are actually starting to go forward again.

Today was beautiful. The sunlight was different to any we've seen this year. Butterflies, bees - and ladybirds - were out. Including this ladybird on our garden fence just outside the back door. The bright light on the shell is the sun.

The fence I built thirteen years ago and that J painted to make it last longer a couple of years back. The fence is a little shaky in places these days. But then so are we!

Watching Wolf Hall on DVD when we have our late lunch in front of the log fire, as the advancing afternoon begins to chill. A mesmeric, slow-burn of a series. Utterly captivated - fascinated - now we've reached episode three.

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