Ludwig Wittgenstein 1889–1951

Parkrun

I handed out the finish tokens at parkrun this morning. Volunteering at parkrun makes me feel that I really belong there. Lovely Luna was there, but even though it was cooler and she's had a haircut, it's still too warm for her to run, so I got to dog-sit her again.

Luna plonked herself right in the middle of the end of the finish funnel just when the first two runners were about to finish. I persuaded her to move out the way. I opened the treat bag, gave her a treat, handed out another token and fastened the treat bag. Then I gave her another treat because Luna isn't daft.

Tour of the 31 Cambridge Colleges

I met Mr Pandammonium on the way to the station, where we got the train to Cambridge. From there, we started our tour of the 31 Cambridge Colleges, punctuated by refreshment stops:

• The Earl of Derby – because the queue for the ladies' in the station was out the door

• Homerton – down Hills Road away from town. New
• Peterhouse – the oldest College. Closed to visitors. Old
• Pembroke – has the archetypal quadrangle. The lawn is not quite perfectly green. Open 9–5. Founded in 1347. Old
• Queen’s – open to visitors willing to pay £5. Old
• Darwin – named after Charles. Unfriendly main door. New

• Granta – a good place to watch people punting.

• Newnham – new
• Wolfson – new
• Selwyn – unusual in that its motto is in Greek rather than Latin. No idea what it says. New
• Clare Hall – home to the sculpture Triangulum by John Sydney Carter (2016). New
• Robinson – the newest College. New
• Churchill – watched the ducks and the young moorhen/coot. New

• Ascension Parish Burial Ground, formerly St Giles' and St Peter's Burial Ground – had lunch on a handy bench, then found philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's grave. Wondered about the apple and the ladder.

• Traveller’s Rest – my watch declared I was having yet another 'incident', so it set about sending off its emergency message to my emergency contact. On this occasion, I stopped it sending it, but I also stopped it recording my hike. Strava therefore uses Mr Pandammonium's data. Oh, you're wondering what these incidents are: I dry my hands.

• Girton – so very far away, but the reason we did this tour. New
• Fitzwilliam – not pretty, but better from the front than the back. Scaffolding up over some of the front. New
• Murray Edwards – not pretty from the main road, but the main entrance has so many plants, it looks like a botanical garden with a mediterranean or tropical feel. It has a domed building, which may be the dining room. New

• The Isaac Newton

• St Edmund's – new
• Lucy Cavendish – new
• Magdalene – pronounced as maudlin for reasons best known to itself. Scaffolding up inside. Old
• John’s – St John's' boat club is called Lady Margaret Boat Club for reasons best known to itself. At a postgraduate conference in Oxford, a Cambridge postgraduate student told they'd 'rather go to Oxford than St John's'. I saw Queenie and Prince Philip on their way to mark the College's quintenary a few years ago. Old
• Trinity – the richest and most land-owning College. Owns Cambridge Science Park, where I used to work. Old
• Caius – Gonville and Caius, which is pronounced keys for reasons best known to itself. I used its library once because they had a book I needed. Closed. Old
• Trinity Hall – closed. Old
• Clare – 'No smoking, cycles, dogs or picnics'. Old
• King’s – the view was marred by Portacabins and a covered skip. Known for its chapel, choir and carol concert shown at Christmas but recorded much earlier in the year. Old
• Bonus: Bull – founded by American soldiers after World War II. Lasted two terms. Not included in the current count of 31 Colleges
• Catz – St Catharine's is not at its best at the moment: they're in the middle of redeveloping the site. Closed to visitors except for chapel services. Old
• Corpus Christi – closed to all visitors, but had a viewing/photography spot to allow you to marvel at how green the lawn in their quadrangle is. Old

• The Mill – another good spot to watch punting from. Made some 'friends'. One, a drunk guy, asked me if I'd buy him a drink. I would not. In the ladies, there are two sinks, each with one tap marked with a red circle. Despite expecting the water to be either hot or cold (just because a tap in a pub is marked hot, it doesn't necessarily mean the water will be hot), I was surprised how hot it actually was. But not so surprised as to actually make a fuss about how hot the water was on a hot day, like my second 'friend' did. Finally, someone complained about how she had decided today, just now, that she did not like Cambridge any more. It's 'too much'. She used to live there and moved 'to the countryside'. She wanted to go home. I told her to finish her drink first and hoped Mr Pandammonium would return from within the pub so we could leave before anyone else started talking to me

• Emma – Emmanuel is the only College I know of that has a tunnel under the road. Old
• Downing – the oldest new College. New
• Christ’s – had the coat of arms above the main gate cleaned relatively recently. It's very spangly now, with its gold paint. Old
• Sidney Sussex – the newest old College. Unfriendly main door. The main entrance is tall, but lacks the turrets of other old Colleges. Old
• Jesus – for some reason, I thought the main entrance was on Victoria Avenue, but it's on the more appropriately named Jesus Lane. Old

• The Cricketers – we decided not to partake of their delicious Thai food on this occasion: we still had a sausage sarnie each to look forward to

• Hughes Hall – uses a shipping container as its porter's lodge. New

It had taken much longer than we'd anticipated, partly because it was farther than we'd anticipated because of the likes of Homerton and especially Girton, so we didn't have time for the last stop at the Devonshire Arms.

Back at the station, the train was delayed, giving us time to scoff our sausage sarnies in the waiting room.

We walked no less than 16 miles, which was well over 37,000 steps for me, for those who are interested.