leapin' lepers!

Shakespeare in the Park was a favourite summertime evening event in many of the cities I have lived in. Yesterday evening, I had big plans to see some Shakespeare, but not in the park. My evening of death and rebirth, loss and redemption was going to occur in the Cambridge Leper Chapel. Yes, you read that correctly, the Leper Chapel.

After work, Salim met Liz and me at the CUL and we headed off for some yummy hearty Italian food and a glass of red. With full tummies and eager spirits, we headed off to the Leper Chapel.

Unfortunately for us, the performance was sold out. We were sad. And then it started to rain. I know, hard to believe that it would rain on my Leper Chapel Shakespearean parade, but it did. Never without a suitable plan b, Liz and Salim marched me over to a pub near where I live for some seriously great beer. Well, I ordered cider (which was also good), but next time I will order beer (the beer was that good).

The rest of the evening was spent the way you would imagine a classicist, a historian of medicine, and a historian of biology would spend an evening over excellent local beer—loud, laughing discussions of Latin, Rome, art, bodies (dead and alive), the Ivory Tower, the strange and curious inhabitants of the Ivory Tower, more talk of dead things, embryos, fetuses, a little geology (Lyellian geology, of course, since Liz and I are Darwin people after all), and a little astronomy.

Here is one last shot of the Leper Chapel. Note Liz and Salim under the green tent discovering that there was no room for us. Boooooo!