A Timeline

 

I don't know if you use Google Maps Timeline or not. Some might describe it as a gross invasion of privacy tracking your every movement, I like to think of it as my insurance in the event of kidnapping.

If you have Location History  switched on in your Google Account then probably, like me, you've had no reason to check it of late, after all who went anywhere in 2020?

I was therefore surprised to receive an email with a 2020 update indicating that I'd been to one other country (and no it wasn't referring to Scotland), visited 19 new cities (Google's definition of a city seems to be pretty loose) and 41 new places in the course of 14 trips. Of course that had me scratching my head, I can recall trips all around Europe that we cancelled but 14 that we actually made, now that is somewhat incredible.

 

A little like cities and places, what Google describes as a trip differs from my own interpretation but it was fun delving into the timeline just to see what it had recorded with the highlights listed as the week on Cyprus in February along with our stays in Langdale (January and August) and at the lighthouse at St Abb's Head in September.

 

In terms of places visited it featured the Dales Countryside Museum at Hawes, Staveley Nature Reserve, Castle Howard, Cusworth Hall Park and Swaledale. They were all good days out and perhaps more memorable because they occurred in a year when we hardly went out. Indeed there was nowhere new at all between April and July. I now appreciate, however, that Google  has a quirky sense of humour because it did include  Ferrybridge Services on the A1, where, just before this latest lockdown, we undertook a socially distanced exchange of gifts with a family member together with a cup of coffee from a flask and a mince pie.

 

I wonder which barrel is going to be scraped to come up with a list of places for 2021?