There is little that pleases my mind more than the discovery of something new. It could be a new idea, a new insight, a new solution, a new joke or, in keeping with more common traditions, something of beauty newly observed. And if, by chance, the discovery touches on my own endeavours or of those close to me, it gives an added fillip. How long the excitement lasts varies; it could be for minutes, days, while sometimes it echoes on for years.

This blog is about a very particular discovery which I made a month ago and still has me buzzing. Prompted by a friend, I searched the web for a picture of the maze I had built three years ago in our back garden in France. It was not any old photo;  it had been taken from several hundred miles away by one of Google Earth’s ‘Spy Satellites’ as it circled the planet. Discovering that the maze I had built had become an identifiable, and possibly unique, landmark on the surface of the earth (see illustration) was very special, indeed, it is a picture I have grown to love!

Now to the maze itself which took over four years to plan and only a few days for its ‘foundations’ to be laid out. It was originally conceived as a folly, but now is very much a working part of our garden maintained partly by me but mainly by our gardener who has adopted it as his own. It is now well established, even ‘mature’.

The maze, which is circular, sits in a large area of meadow-land halfway down our garden. Initially it was mapped out on the grass with string and bamboo canes that indicated in detail its planned layout. Then, by mowing carefully between the markers, the paths and hedges of the ‘fledgling’ maze were created.  In all it has one entrance and a diameter of around 30 metres; its paths are 60cm wide and the dividing walls (hedges of reeds and grasses) over 50cm high. At the centre of the maze is a mowed circular patch on which are a chair and table to mark the ‘goal’. For the first year or so the hedges were thin and allowed would-be cheats to step over into a neighbouring path to get more quickly to the central goal. With the hedges now grown thick, cheating is difficult.

That I should love the satellite picture so much has surprised me – my attitude to photos is generally very negative. I avoid people taking pictures of me and when friends offer to show me their holiday ‘snaps’, I almost always decline leaving Rohan to sit through them – which she does happily. 

When it comes to photographs of our house my feelings are less polarised. I would always welcome passers-by who wished to take pictures of a previous house when the aged wisteria was in full bloom as it climbed up past the first floor. Most other pictures I detest, so the over-detailed, ‘prying’ street videos shown on ‘Google Street View’ I see as cold, ugly and intrusive. When a friend phoned to ask whether it was me walking along the road outside my house on a recent view, he was indeed right and I felt violated. 

How very different is the aerial photo of my maze by ‘Google Earth’; as I see it, the image feels like a picture from heaven! These days, discovering satellite photos of one’s home on the web is commonplace, perhaps for some showing outhouses, garages, a swimming pool and even stables. By virtue of its very simplicity, the picture of my maze from high up is very different and for very personal reasons, is precious and treasured. After all, it is the first time I have got a feel of what my folly actually looks like – from ground level it is difficult to imagine. And the pleasure I get from the picture soars when I remember a friend’s suggestion that, for him, its green concentric circles look like the photo of a 5000-year old ancient earth work.

It is interesting how seeing photos enhances one’s memories. Google Earth’s image of my garden maze certainly does that.

The illustration shows a photo taken for Google Earth by their satellite circling some 300 – 400 miles above the earth. The concentric circles show the maze in our garden in Brittany which has a diameter of around 30 metres. The maze paths were created by mowing the reeds and long grass in our meadow.   

For helping write this blog I would like to thank Tom, Mark, Mike, Yves, Rohan and Vivien.