I still, vaguely, have a memory of purchasing my first fax machine. I marvelled at the technology and how it was possible to send data down a string of copper wire and reassemble it the other end to form a plausible explanation of a message.
I was still to buy my first computer back then and it was a world away from today's super fast digital world where the only thing that seems impossible to send down the linear optics is a smell or a solid object.
Using the fax became very important, especially for sending a map to anyone attending a meeting in our office or on a site that we were working on. However, sending a photo never worked and the fine detailed lines on the photograph collaborated to form a black mass or confusion on the printed fax paper.
Today it is oh so different with so many tools at our disposal. You may have noticed in several of my recent postings that I have included a Google Earth screenshot of my subject. The addition of the picture served three purposes.
1. My inner craving for nostalgia meant I could zoom in on a garden that I had landscaped.
2. Vanity - look I did this.
3. To illustrate to my readership that the job was real and becomes so much more tangible and alive when it can be associated with the description in print.
Google out of date.
This post started life on an idea about how to turn an area of bland tarmac into an attractive landscape to set your mood when you leave for work in the morning.
Isington Mill near Bentley is the former home of Field Marshall Montgomery of El Alamein and has gone through a couple of changes of ownership since his death in 1976.
I was called in by the current owner in 2003 to re-design the garden.
Unfortunately, the previous owner had decided that this wonderful example of a working mill would be enhanced by the addition of a vast black tarmac car park.
Together with my head designer Paul Guppy, we set about transforming this bland space into a light and airy area with the intention of lighting up your personality in the morning, when you first set foot through the entrance, and again when you return perhaps from a late day at the office.
Gone went the 500 square metres of tarmac and replaced with a soft rouge flushed gravel with Selborne brick and double tram lined header edging with Indian stone slither infill.
The only soft feature of the original garden was a huge mill stone which had been placed outside the main entrance door with clay brick and sandstone slither infill - Unfortunately we could not acquire enough sandstone so we opted for Indian Stone and used a pigment and waterproofing sealant to change the colour and characteristics of the Indian stone to mimic the original.
Topped off with planting, many grasses because these were vogue at the time with a variety of other planting the whole area became transformed.
Back to my original point about using Google Earth. Looking up Isington I zoomed into the Mill hoping to see our landscape (all be it at a considerable height) but the original tarmac still exists.
Bearing in mind that we were called in March 2003 this is proof that some of the Google Earth images are way way out of date now.
I remember that Richard Branson was recently quoted as saying he intended to use Google Earth in the search for Steve Fossett who was thought to have crashed his plane in the Nevada desert whilst searching for a suitable site for a land speed record.
I can tell you that a search for Steve Fossett would have been impossible if he had landed in the garden of Isington Mill.
What is the Google policy for updating the aerial frames? Is this a feature perhaps of the free version and there is a tiered overlay for paid versions?
All I am able to illustrate using Google Earth is the garden before we touched it.
Zoom into Isington Mill on Google maps.
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