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I remember, a couple of years ago, when I first loaded Google Earth, I could ‘fly’ around the neighbourhood and peer into locations that I had not known existed. I could now see what was behind those six foot walls and which of my neighbours had a swimming pool.
The novelty soon wore off!
The next exercise was to nip ’home’ to old familiar places. Where I was born, where my grandparents lived. Where my Great grandparents lived!
It was quite reassuring to see those old buildings still standing and in many cases the trees in the gardens. The very same trees that I would have shinned up as a boy, probably if visiting Gran, in my ‘best clothes’.
Then came holidays.
I wondered about that caravan site at Towyn in Wales in the 1950’s.
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A caravan breakfast in Towyn.
Yes, it was still there. It was called Towyn then, but I notice on modern maps the Welsh have decided to re-name everything, probably to confuse the ‘visitors’.
We then had a different caravan, this time at Clevedon, down in Somerset.
That site was still going, but I noticed hard-standing for the vans and concrete drives.
It now looked very residential.
It was a farm site back in the fifties.
Cows in the fields.
Dad, always good for laugh decided (to pretend) to take a bath in the cow's drinking water!
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Farm camping in the 50's.
I checked out every holiday location. Every place I had worked. Every house I had lived in. Been there, done that, but I have to admit that I do not have all the T-shirts!
But coming up to date I have found it interesting to fly around the world and see where fellow bloggers live. Not to peer into their gardens or anything like that. Just the area and the surroundings. After all you don’t know the exact addresses anyway.
Visiting Jan in California, I found the river that she described.
Popping over to Deb in Rockport MA to see the lighthouse and the island that she sailed out to, to tune a harmonium!
How the world has shrunk.
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Australia - Here I come!
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Well Bernard one of my favourite places Clevedon!! I'm more than happy for you to peer into my backyard, you'll see lots.Email me and I'll send you the locality.Great thing GoogleEarth.
ReplyDeleteI use Google Earth for exactly the same reasons as you, U/Bernard. Before we visited our son, who lived in Italy, then, Switzerland, then Brussels, then presently deeper into Belgium, we could see his houses and surrounding landscapes.
ReplyDeleteFor us, it was good to visualise the areas until such times as we could visit. In Switzerland he overlooked Lake Lugano and we couldn't wait to see it in the flesh (so to speak). It's a wonderful creation. Funnily enough, I was just thinking about that yesterday - where would we be without Google Earth? xx
Yes, it's a great tool isn't it? I use it to check out an area when we are going on holidays. Before I booked a gite in France I would zoom in to see if the village was too big or too small, how far it was from others, WHERE it was even. Fantastic!
ReplyDeleteCome on down to OZ, Bernard but look out for the cyclone that is hovering off the coast. It's meant to hit the central coast of Queensland this week end! don't forget to visit Queensland and Brisbane in particular. Our slogan is "Beautiful one day, Perfect the next" !!!
Cheers
Helen
Lovely holiday memories Uncle. I have found Google Earth very useful for house hunting. I especially like the way you can "drag the little man" into the area in question and get a street view.Such a time waster :D
ReplyDeleteThe internet does make the world such a very small place. I like the way lets you meet people you would never have met otherwise.
ReplyDeleteLove those old family pics :-)
Von:
ReplyDeleteFancy you knowing Clevedon. As the post says “It’s a small world”.
I haven’t been there since those days in the 50’s. I bet I wouldn’t recognise it.
Mrs S:
I hope you don’t mind be shortening your full title. But there are several words I can never remember how to spell. One is ‘Successful’ and the other is ‘Necessary’.
At school there was a rhyme about ‘one collar’ ( c ) and ‘two studs’ ( ss ), which meant I always spelt it ‘Sucessful’!!!
I haven’t tried google in Italy yet. I have had lots of holidays there. I must give it a try.
I have been all over Tuscany. Beautiful. If I had to leave Britain, I would choose Tuscany.
Helen:
It is excellent for checking out a place before you visit. In fact I use it to find a route for driving. (I don’t go in for SatNaff). You can find and see back roads an free parking spots. I have googled down to Bombala NSW where a friend of mine lives. It looks good from the air.
Hi Kath:
I do hope I don’t bore people with old holiday snaps. I try to pick interesting or amusing pictures. Dad used to take hundreds…..I don’t know what we are going to do with them all. My sister Jean, is still trying to sort them all out.
Hi Cherie:
It must also be a lifeline to people who live alone or in remote places. It is also useful for families separated (by distance), to keep in contact.
I hope I not boring you with these old B&W prints. Colour film was not around then.
In fact Dad and I started using colour slides before colour prints became affordable.
Mrs S here Uncle Bernard - happy to have my name shortened. Successful, as you say, is correct. I remember being told in school how to remember the spelling of the words 'stationery/stationary'; 'e' from stationery represented 'envelope' and 'a' from stationary represented 'train' - ach - I knew that anyway (hehehe). What a lot of comments and responses we make through blogging - sometimes it takes up quite a bit of time, but it's so enjoyable isn't it?
ReplyDeleteThanks for that Mrs S. You have now given me an idea for Friday's post.
ReplyDeleteThank you.