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, 30 June 2017

forked tree, enchanted forest, tranquil thames, mst gr, neglected allotment..., powysland by tim blanchard






This tree that I pass most days, I hadn't really noticed until this week. It's partly hidden from the path but then I would have thought that it would have been even more striking in the bare winter and early spring.

Head full of too many other things, obviously.

It's a tall, many-stemmed tree, perched on its forked trunk - and there's a savage face at the base of them.

Altogether, a sinuous, almost writhing, web-footed - so-many-things-contained-in-it - being.

A little further on, there was a melting toadstool.























Quite the enchanted forest, really!

Only when I got to the tranquillity of the Thames beyond the station did things calm down.



A busy week? Goes without saying. The MSt Guided Retreat this weekend, so there's been lots of reading to do - on the bus and in the evenings. Rewarding reading, though. I'm looking forward to seeing the students for the last time and to listening to the end-of-course showcase readings they all give on Monday night.

The allotment has been a touch neglected, though.

Meanwhile, I was sent a link earlier in the week to a page on the website of Unbound, the excellent crowd-funding publisher, for a book on the wonderful, extraordinary John Cowper Powys. It's title is, Powysland: The Greatest Writer You've Never Heard Of, And What We Can Learn From Him and it's by member of the Powys Society, Tim Blanchard. Worth checking out. Worth sponsoring, if you have the spare cash!
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1 comment:

  1. Margaret Keeping1 July 2017 at 08:31

    I'm very interested in the Powys brothers and in their close friend Sylvia Townsend Warner, so I'll look into it. Thanks Frank.

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