Welcome to BargeGirl

Anyway, what’s that you say Sooty?
What’s this blog doing here?

The story is, my cute little anarchic friend, that I work in digital media and that helps.
And I am about to take a journey.

To sample a roving life for a few years and . . . why don’t you come with me!

> Sooty:
What’s a piano got to do with barges?

> B-Girl:
I just liked the picture and it came with the theme that I am using for this weblog.
It will keep for now my little hammer-powered tongue-tied friend.

The “piano hands” remind me of my father and his love of music.
The piano was my own first love affair with music – making aweful noises for hours on end at a very kind neighhbour’s house when I was about 8.

I was a little brainiac then, like you Sooty, with a reading age of 12 they said. So I could read enough to understand the book in the piano stool about what was middle C, and how to pick out the notes to play a nursery rhyme.

I need to go back to that now phantom house one day.
It is said my superpowers turned to gold glitter lost like some dessicated fleece in the mythic carpet there somewhere where the suburbanite angel shades of the departed hover at night.

My beautiful son is invested with the impulse to make music. At about 5 years of age he spent a long time at a cranky old piano at Pittwater Youth Hostel one Christmas.

The piano picture and this “Pianoforte” WordPress template is by Tony Street.
Thanks Tony! He loves music too!

MUSTER

Preparing for a journey like this has meant having to consciously up sticks.
Slowly “cutting” connections with people as you prepare to leave.
Looking forward to meeting new friends along the way.

So time to say some good-byes then.

Saying au revoir to a special person in your life is always a bit hard.
The good news is that the end of that relationship leaves its legacy.
The best of that is more music, a love of food (he was a brilliant cook) and wine (experiencing wine as never before). These things come on my journey with me.

BOOMÂ CHICA . . . BOOM!

Being a boomer chic, this part of life . . . being the middle bit heading to later, is an unexpected joy!

It’s like being in your early 20s all over again. In your late teens and early 20s you are out of your folks place (or not! for some of the current generation) and finding out who the hell your are! And how to manage things for yourself.

And, who would have thought, it feels the same for this bit, too.

Because you have been moved along to the next part. The kids are out of there (or not!) and you are not the same any more. And there is your life still in front of you.

So what the! Now what do you do?

You’ve had your head down and bum up getting through the parenting bit.
So when you look up now, who is around and who are you when you are not being mum any more?

It was a while ago now, but I wept for the first few months after my son left home, even though I was thrilled for him that he had done so well in his choice of places to go and things to do.

It was a strange place to be, without him in the house.
Having tears well up at unexpected moments in the street, or shops or on the phone.

Then suddenly, it dawns on you.
Hey, this is not so bad after all.
In fact there is something to be said for it.
(You know I love you to pieces, said son!)

There’s a lot less work and things to think of. The money goes further.
You can please yourself in ways you hadn’t thought of for some time.
So there’s a new sun shining in your life.

Which doesn’t mean you won’t share that sun if your child needs to return for a while.
But its your day again!  And then what happens is . . . your parents need care!

I am working on what to do about that at the moment before I leave, doing my bit amongst the brothers and sisters, to help out there.

My maha may even come on part of this journey if she chooses to.
After all, it was her who gave the inspiration for . . . BargeGirl!
Her Germanic storytelling ways about the family’s European ancestry.

Say hallo BargeGirl!

Those stories: ancestry that came to Germany via France on one side and Denmark on the other. A possible Greek connection via France, with the European family name being Hermes, a very ancient name. Possibly a Jewish strain also when you look at us.

And there was a story about a barge connection in those ancestral roamings.
Which captured my imagination.

And, now, well, why don’t you come along as I see what can be done about that!
That barge story will be told soon.

Our first barge

The Forman Brothers of Prague run an ex-coal barge on the Vlatava River as a floating theatre. Here is the website for Theatre Anpu

Read about their great barge life here

And here are they, looking like a pair of carved wooden puppets themselves:



Barge on the Vlatava, the river that cuts through the seven hills that make up Prague

Prague and puppets, Czech and arts, a PM who was a poet