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 29 May 2011

shirt race, not, courgettes and cucumbers, peonies and the garden

















The Bampton Morris dancing and folk weekend is in full swing. Sadly, though, I fell asleep and missed the Shirt Race, so no pics of the Downton Abbey rig that Keith on the allotments told me about. Ah well.

Hoping to stay awake for a bit of folk music down the pubs this evening.

Meanwhile, planted out cucumber and courgette seedlings on the allotment this afternoon. I forked through the places where I was going to plant them to a fork's depth and made dishes in the soil so the seedlings were below the surface and protected from the wind. The wind is relentless and has sucked nearly all the moisture out of the ground since the rains on Thursday.

I'm sad to say that usually I struggle to cultivate the plot because my times up there are limited to when I have gaps in my work schedule and usually when I'm free it's raining. As a result I'm usually still battling away by now. This year, getting up on the allotment has been no problem, what with all the dry weather. So, usually, it's chaos but productive chaos. This year it's a well-tended desert.

Here are some pics of Jess' garden instead.
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