The continuing story of Professor Sheldon Cooper and his wife, Professor Bernadette Rostenkowski-Cooper. Part 4, Sheldon and Bernadette on sabbatical in Cambridge.

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Sheldon and Bernadette arrived in Cambridge on April 2nd 2031. Sheldon continued with his work as if he had never left Caltech, he had whiteboards in his office and their visiting scholars apartment. The only difference was instead of discussing his work with his Cambridge colleagues by email and Skype he could talk with them face to face.

However, things were very different for Bernadette. She wanted to get back to doing science. She had spent so little time in the lab in recent years so took (at her own insistence) the newcomers laboratory biological safety course. Her first two weeks in the lab were spent taking this course with 2 nervous young Ph.D students from India. She was also trained up in operation of the electron microscopes. Once she got herself fully trained up she just acted as a pair of helping hands in the lab to whoever needed help. She helped James (Caltech's Cambridge visitor of 2030) and Kerstin (Cambridge's Caltech visitor of 2031) in the lab. It was a pleasant surprise for both students that their former Professor, who they had mostly seen at weekly group meetings at Caltech, actually knew how to do science. Bernadette found herself running the electron microscope service for a couple of weeks when the experimental officer was on holiday. Bernadette was having a great time doing science and not being in meetings all day. She wore her lab coat every single working day!

Sheldon and Bernadette did some travelling during their time in Cambridge. Bernadette went to a 2 day microbiology meeting in Edinburgh, Sheldon then joined her at the end of the meeting and they had a weekend playing tourist in the Scottish capital. Sheldon went to CERN in Switzerland to give a lecture and Bernadette came along for the ride.

Once a week they would have a Skype chat with the social group back home in Pasadena to find out what was happening at home. Then one day in September...

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Sheldon was in his office working on his whiteboard when he was called for a meeting with the head of the Physics department, Professor Sally Jones.

Sally: "Ah, Professor Cooper, thank you for coming to join us. Do you remember Professor Malcolm Hutton."

Sheldon: "Good morning Professors, yes I do remember Professor Hutton."

Sally: "How are you enjoying Cambridge University."

Sheldon: "I am having a great time over here. Back home to California next month, I will be sad to leave."

Then Professor Hutton spoke: "How would you like to come back here permanently?"

Sheldon: "What do you mean Professor?"

Malcolm: "I am Lucasian Professor of Mathematics here at Cambridge. I believe you once knew one of my predecessors, Stephen Hawking."

Sheldon: "I did know Professor Hawking, a great man who I still miss today."

Malcolm: "I am 67 next April, the University has a rule that the Lucasian Professor must retire on their 67th birthday."

Sally: "So we will need a new Lucasian Professor next April, would you like the job Professor Cooper?"

Sheldon: "That is quite an offer, it would be an honour to follow in the footsteps of Professor Hawking and other Lucasian Professors like Paul Dirac and Isaac Newton! I need to discuss this with my wife."

Sally: "We are fully aware of your wife Bernadette, we have had a word with our colleagues in microbiology. If you were to take this job they said they would find a suitable job for her. We would want you to start next April so if you were to decide to take the job you can go back to California and sort things out with Caltech."

Sheldon took out his phone "Hello Bernadette, can we meet for lunch today, I have something important I need to discuss with you..."