Crimean cannon

This is the original Crimean War cannon in Ely that this cannon in Godmanchester is a replica of. It’s been wrapped with Ukraine flags, and flowers have been put in the business end – much nicer than a cannonball.

Parkrun

Parkrun was exciting today. A lad, R, who set our course record some weeks ago was back to reclaim his record after it was broken last week by another lad, C, who did the 5k course in fifteen minutes thirty.

I love to marvel at the fast runners. They breeze round with long strides and barely get out of breath. Parkrun isn’t a race, of course, but the competition at the top is fun.

Parkrun is really about the ordinary people who plod round the course most weeks come rain or shine, getting that bit fitter every week. It’s about the the running talk, the camaraderie of volunteering, the making new friends, the keeping people going when they’re flagging; all that stuff.

The funnel team (the funnel manager, two timekeepers and the finish tokens giver-outer – me) generally hangs around music corner to cheer the runners on till the lead runner comes round for their final lap, a short one, when the team moves to the finish funnel. The team had to hustle today because of the speed of the lead runner.

There was a huge gap between the lead runner and the other runners. Was it R? Yes. Did he finish first? Yes. Did he get the record? Yes. He smashed it with a time of fourteen minutes, thirty-eight seconds. Sub-fifteen. Impressive indeed. The next person reached the finish funnel three and a half minutes later.

Update: R’s time was the fastest in the whole of UK parkruns this week. How impressive is that?

Will C be back next week to try to reclaim the record?

Walking/hiking

I’ve got pretty much all my kit now, so I packed it all up (actually: unpacked, packed, unpacked, packed) in my rucksack. I persuaded Mr Pandammonium to take his full backpack too for support purposes. We also took our walking poles.

We walked to Prickwillow, which has nothing but a sports and social club and a museum about draining the fens.

After a spot of lunch by the river, watching a paddle-boarding man nearly fall in twice, we went back up towards Second Drove (I have no idea where First Drove is) for a recce before heading along the Ouse to Ely.

The rickety bridge seems to have become more rickety: there were signs saying only two people could cross at once. We did it one at a time because of our loaded backpacks.

In Ely, we had refreshments, took a photo of the cannon and caught the train home.