No it isn’t a great image, and no i’m not becoming one of those ‘visual artists’ who use images from Google Street to make art. This screen capture image, though fuzzy and blurry, is an important find…. at least to some people.

Last weekend, the last in the line of my grandparents died. My Grandma was 93. The family is still coming to terms with the events of the past ten days. Somehow you believe that people will always be there. We fool ourselves into thinking that time stands still when everything, in fact, points to time passing by and people getting older. Then you get hit with the fact that connections to people and places do come to an abrupt end.

Next week I’ll be down in Northamptonshire for the funeral and to empty Grandma’s bungalow. It will be a sad event in more ways than one. We will have also lost the last  family connection to the village of Thorpe Malsor where my father spent much of his childhood and my grandparents lived right until the end. The village itself was part of the family with so many memories. It was the place where i first got drunk on a rather tasty, but very powerful, home made rhubarb whiskey from my Granddad’s extensive wine cellar. You name it, and my Granddad had probably made a very good wine from it. It’s going to be sad to think that we have no one to visit there any more.

While having a wander through Thorpe Malsor on Google Earth today, I suddenly came across this familiar looking person walking their dog. Was it? Is it? Yes! It is my Grandma walking Trixie. I actually recognised Trixie first – no face blurring on dogs. Grandma seems to be just turning the corner for home after returning from a walk down Eagle Lane. They used to walk miles. The image was taken nearly three years ago, back in March 2009.

I imagine she had no idea what the Google Street car was, or what it was doing. Trixie is certainly giving the camera a wary look I had no idea Grandma was on Google Earth until today, but it’s certainly a nice way to remember her – just out walking Trixie.