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 June 2016

last new york photos, non-stop rain, now stopped, tree peony, oerc and mod langs parties, remain!











Last New York photos.

In west Oxfordshire, it's been pretty much non-stop rain and no allotmenting has been done. Though I am planning to head up there later this afternoon.

In the garden all the petals have been pelted off. The rain has been good for the frog pond, though, which is fuller and clearer. Two water lily flowers are open today too.

I'm pleased that the tree peony has survived the downpours and is in flower. I thought somehow that it was late this year but looking back at previous years' posts (20th June 2015, for example) it is in fact early!

Looking forward to the OeRC tenth anniversary celebrations next week and to the Mod Langs summer party, which ironically happens on the same day as the referendum. Which way will I be voting? As the Ops Manager of the Bodleian's Western and Eastern European Languages libraries that does not remain to be seen. Remain!
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