Horseshoes: preliminaries

This being notice of the start of the second day of the recent visit to Cambridge, the first day of which was noticed at reference 1. Starting with an early morning stroll from Travelodge Central to what used to be called Station Corner, now realigned.

First up the preserved 'Flying Pig', a house recently closed when I noticed it in back in 2021 at reference 5. From reference 6 it looks as if Skanska are doing a lot of the work, on behalf of Railpen, which I presume is a company set up to take on the British Rail pension fund at the time of privatisation. Maybe most of the land in question used to belong to British Rail?

However, reference 7 suggests that this is not the case. Just a regular bit of property development by a regular pension fund. Presumably the 'Flying Pig' will become just another boozer which has been made over to provide pub grub. Mostly delivered to the site, more or less ready to go, by Brakes or some such. We shall see.

Part of the realignment of Station Corner, was pushing the war memorial from the middle of the junction to the side of the road. more or less right in front of the rather tatty back entrance to the University Botanic Gardens.

My firm belief was that this statue was the work of Kathleen Scott, the sculptress who was married for a few years to the polar explorer Captain Scott. But I find from reference 8 that I had got this quite wrong. I can only think that either my father or I had got muddled up with the memorial at Huntingdon, a nearby town where my father once went to school - where the war memorial was the work of Kathleen Scott, not that you would know that from reference 10. Happily, reference 11 is clear enough.

The milestone behind the statue. I failed to make out what it said. While the telephone failed to make much of the fine convolvulus flowers above.

But it did rather better when one of them was the main business, as it were.

A row of terraces, most of which had been knocked into a hotel. Presumably built for railway workers, higher grade.

An unmarked lorry delivering to the small Sainsbury's next to the hotel. But it did have a large number on the roof, rather in the way of most police cars. Do they really track these things by satellite?

The eastern parapet of the southern end of the Hills Road railway bridge is visible to the right of the cab window. See the map at reference 1 for directions - which reminds me that we had failed to make it to the Coleridge Recreation Ground the day before. Probably too new for Wellingtonia but you never know.

Called in at the Sainsbury's for something or other, to find that Mitie have got the contract for providing security guards there, presumably mainly intended to deter shop lifters. The people whom a sociologist might say were collecting their benefits in kind. Mitie being the same people who did some of the peripheral facilities management work during my time with the Treasury. People who seem to be getting everywhere.

Not such a good breakfast as I had been expecting of Travelodge. To start, I went for the tropical fruit salad (or something like that), which had been good at a Premier Inn in London. But this one had been frozen or near frozen at some point, which had done bad things to some of the ingredients. While the pineapple chunks were still half frozen. Not good at all. And the grilled (or perhaps fried) tomatoes which followed were only lukewarm and not fully cooked. And so it seemed to go on. I am sure it was much better last time we were there.

Hopefully we would do better the next day, when we would know what to avoid.

I managed to work the new Veezu app on the telephone - the Veezu already noticed at reference 1 - and the taxi turned up at the right time to carry us to the next fixture, to almost the right place. Luckily we both had telephones, so the error was not fatal. The driver was a chap from Afghanistan who explained that he could cope with both hot and cold just fine, as Afghanistan did both, in spades as it were. He seemed to have settled in well, with a wife and family, although his brother, who had been here rather longer, was not doing so well. Must be hard turning up in what to them would be a very foreign country, with not much English and not much more than the clothes they stood up in. At least there is a fine new mosque in Mill Road.

This evening however, Veezu are a puzzle. I can't find the app on my telephone - but a telephone which still clearly knows all about Veezu as, when prompted, they tell me that I am out of area but to phone them anyway as they may be able to fix something up. Can I be bothered to find out what is going on here?

On the way through town, the main event was a pink festival on Jesus Green. That is to say, large numbers of people wearing pink shirts gathering, probably for some kind of run. Very much the sort of pink that Dignity in Dying go in for for their events. For which today, on the clue 'jesus green sunday 29th june running event', Bing turns up reference 13. Clever things these search engines when they put their minds to it: didn't even need to be told where Jesus Green was.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/rustat-road.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/wellingtonia-128.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/07/wellingtonia-129-and-130.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/06/piano-106.html.

Reference 5: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/11/through-tunnel.html.

Reference 6: https://www.skanska.co.uk/about-skanska/news-and-events/press-releases/299185/Skanska-UK-secures-contract-for-Cambridgeshire-redevelopment/.

Reference 7: https://www.railpen.com/.

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_War_Memorial. A rather complicated story, all mixed up in some way with Addenbrooke's Hospital. I was vaguely aware of the unnaturally long stride, but I don't think I had ever really latched onto the improbable laurel wreath, despite passing the thing, on a bus or on a bicycle, thousands of times.

Reference 9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Scott. Seemingly a very modern lady, keen on sculpting young male nudes.

Reference 10: https://www.iwm.org.uk/memorials/item/memorial/293.

Reference 11: https://www.huntingdontown.gov.uk/council-services/war-memorials/.

Reference 12: https://www.mitie.com/.

Reference 13: https://runabc.co.uk/race-for-life-cambridge.