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 24 June 2011

radcliffe infirmary















This morning, as I walked from the Latin American Centre towards St Giles, it looked as if someone had done a Christo on the Radcliffe Infirmary--Christo himself, perhaps?

Prosaically, it seems the wrapping is merely the latest phase of Oxford University's project to restore the 1770 building before it becomes home to the Humanities Divisional Office, two Bodleian Libraries' collections and a Faculty in 2012 (see the project website and live webcam).

It will be interesting to see the building when the wrapping is taken off.

By the time I moved to Oxford the Infirmary had ceased to be the city's main hospital--the new JR having opened in 1979--though I do remember being brought to the Infirmary from Stowe after breaking my arm during a judo competition. For some reason I'd decided not to wait for the minibus to take me back to the school after the competition, having retired early, and walked the two or three miles home. The arm didn't hurt that much until the evening. I didn't sleep a wink in the sick-room that night.
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