May Week once more

Any week that ends with you having the champagne (well, Cava) stains dry-cleaned out of your pale linen suit has to be May Week.

For those who've not been lurking around this blog that long, or have but haven't paid much attention, May week is a week in June that celebrates the end of the academic year with Pimms-drenched garden parties and stay-til-dawn College balls.

This year I hit the garden party circuit harder, and kept myself to one college ball, going to the Caius (say "keys") Ball with a group of PhD mates.

That said, I may be getting old and jaded. I was feeling tired after just two days of steady-but-never-roaring-drunk drinking and pushinng on until dawn at the Caius ball felt particularly rough between about 2.30 and 4 am.

However, once dawn started to break around 4 (it hadn't been properly dark until 9.30 anyway) I perked up remarkably and went in search of a black coffee and steak sandwich. (As opposed to the mixture of voda and fruit juice that got me through the chill morning that followed the Jesus Ball last year.)

Caius is a gorgeous college and it was a good night (a photo of the college at dawn to the left).

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't 100% with us. A light misting rain was falling a lot of the night. It was that typically English rain that if you stood out in it long enough would never be heavy enough to soak you through, but you would start to grow moss. It was mostly only visible in the spotlights, but did put a dampner (no pun ...) on the outdoor activities.

Even the music venue tent wasn't totally spared: a gust of wind could send water crashing off its non-existent eaves onto anyone unfortunate enough to be at the fringes.

Still, good food, drink, company and some memorable comedy and music acts in a wonderful setting. Even if the dining room of the Senior Parlour looked mock Greco-Roman in a Las Vegas kind of a way ...