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 19 May 2013

heavy cold..., moorhens, may landscape, writers greehouse, red nile - robert twigger, margaret keeping, edward thomas


















Two pictures taken a couple of weeks ago. Not out and about much this weekend due to heavy cold that's been doing the rounds at the University. Have to say that I felt a lot better today when I got up and imagined myself doing all sorts of things in the garden and allotment. Mowing the lawn and chopping some kindling, though, finished me off.

The family of moorhens were seen on the Oxford Canal opposite the flats where the old Lucy's foundry used to be. On Friday all members of the family were doing well--the five chicks a lot, lot bigger. The view towards the Cotswolds from near the neighbouring village of Lew is a similar one to that posted on 3rd February, which showed a very bleak landscape with picked-clean hedges and trees. The ground is now being cultivated but is still, I would say, pretty bare--for May!

Meanwhile, I realise so late in the day that I failed as a fiend and Facebook friend to Megan Kerr, who was fundraising for a project recently. Spring was so busy that Facebook pretty much passed me by... Do check out her website The Writers Greenhouse, which includes details of her writing courses. (Sorry, Megan...)

Megan is a member of Writers in Oxford and I'm really pleased that a new book on the River Nile by a friend and former member of the group Robert Twigger, is the lead review in Sunday Times Books today. The Sunday Times is, of course, behind the paywall, so here's a link to the page for Red Nile on his publisher's website, Orion. See also, Robert's blog.

As always, do check out, Margaret Keeping's wonderful blog, Publishing my Edward Thomas, which grows and grows as a terrific Edward Thomas resource.

No comments:

Post a Comment