Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Dieppe Raid 2007
N.E.R.D.S Ramble 219 – Dieppe Raid 2007
Those Present – Froggy, Matt, Bronco and Lafayette.
Wednesday 10th October.
You will notice the unfortunate absence of a couple of NERDS on this trip. Still, four’s a quorum (as are three), but two NERDS together is classed only as a couple of blokes going for a drink. The reason for this “NERDS Lite” trip was that Sandyballs had been threatened with not having any balls at all if he went abroad again ( something to do with spending too much time recently in Frankfurt ), and B.T. was again piston broke.
And so it was that the ones who did go assembled at the back of The Seven Sisters (ferry) with all their rucksacks, crampons, boots, wet weather gear, Kendal mint cake etc. looking forward to a couple of days hard scrambling over the cliffs around Dieppe so that they could take back tales of fierce bravery and derring-do to those poor souls who were unable to take part.
First things first. Get a table, make enough noise so that no-one else comes near you, go to the Duty Free shop and buy a bottle of brandy so that you don’t keep having to squabble about who’s turn it is to keep going to the bar and get the drinks. Oh, and keep an eye out just in case the barman decides you’re taking the piss and decides to throw you off in mid Channel.
Having got the essentials sorted out, the pleasantly sunny morning passed in a sort of alcoholic haze until disaster struck. Lafayette noticed one of the barmaids dreamily holding a notice in front of her stating (apparently) that she was “hors de service”. Not being able to resist this gift of an opportunity Lafayette asked her when normal service would be resumed and how much she cost. There was a shriek of Gallic rage at this perceived impertinence; the barmaid called her male colleague who chased Lafayette round the deck, and when he failed to catch him wreaked his revenge on the NERDS’s
rucksacks, crampons, boots, wet weather gear, Kendal mint cake etc by pitching it all over the side.
Oh dear! The Nerds were mortified at Lafayette’s stupidity. How were they going to ramble now? How could they go back and face their fellow Nerds, especially Sandyballs, and confess they hadn’t been able to walk anywhere? Easy peasy, they thought, we’ll just get Froggy who is the (second) biggest fantasist amongst us to spin some tale about where we’ve been and nobody will be any the wiser. Sorted.
And so we checked into the Aguado where Bronco shared with Froggy and Lafayette shared with Matt (rooms that is). We looked out of the window where the sun was shining on the seafront and spotted the chip vans and ice-cream stalls and started to feel hungry. This seemed like a good opportunity to go for a stroll – not a ramble, Lafayette had seen to that – and see what there was to see.
It was a glorious afternoon, the sky and the sea were blue and the promenade was bathed in the sun. The Nerds were only sad that they couldn’t do what they had really come to do so settled for nonching along the seafront in the warmth eating Froggy’s chips and slurping ice-cream. There were girlies in skimpy bathing costumes running screaming into the sea. There were interesting buildings like the casino and the castle to see, and there was lots of beer to drink outside the old Copacabana Café where we tarried for a couple of hours and drank many tearful toasts to the other home bound Nerds who couldn’t be with us . How we missed them!
After a little snooze to mitigate our grief (about not being with our other friends and not being able to ramble) we decided to go out to eat something before we wasted away with sorrow. First of all we found ourselves in a bar whose main customers were little dogs. The bar tender pulled down the outer metal door to within two feet of the pavement as a hint that closure was imminent and we wondered whether we were going to be incarcerated all night on a diet of wotsits and Ricard. However we were pleased to see that the French managed to get over this minor difficulty in their search for alcohol by lying on the pavement and rolling into the bar. So that’s how we exited after trading a few insults about the outcome of the next weekend’s rugby match with the local natives. (Ho, ho, we smashed the French so that’s another bar we can’t go back to)
Finally that day we had an excellent meal in a nearby restaurant (forgotten the name, but they’re all good in Dieppe) where Froggy was just about to go into a strop about the lack of filet de boeuf on the menu when the waitress came over and offered him another sort of meat by waggling her tits at him and saying what an honour it was to have such a famous author at her establishment . This hussy like behaviour seemed to mollify Froggy and yet another strop type crisis was narrowly averted.
We rounded off the day by going to the Tout Va Bien bar on the front and having a long philosophical discussion over coffee and (lots of) calvados about how Statins gives you a dimp lick (sic). Guess who initiated this fascinating topic. And so to bed.
Thursday 11th October
Lafayette was woken by Matt snoring gently into his ear. It must have been quite a night, last night, he thought. Time for breakfast. We were informed of the old French habit of buying your own croissants and being allowed to sit in someone’s café to eat them – provided you paid them for the privilege and the coffee, so off we went to the bakers.
After trying to persuade Froggy not to spend 25 minutes trying to extract every last centime from the Nerds whip purse to avoid breaking into a new 5 euro note, and to just pay the woman, we drifted into the Café de La Paix to indulge in the vile ritual of dipping pastries into coffee cups and spreading crumbs everywhere.
Matts said he recognized the owner of the place from when he had been a galley slave on the Chartres many years ago, so Lafayette enquired and name dropped a bit exaggerating his own modest part in driving this famous vessel on to the rocks many years previously.
The café owner dropped on to one knee in awe and tried to kiss the hem of Lafayette’s anorak. “My good friend Jean-Claude Lagroue (one of the old PAF bosses) will be honoured if you would be gracious enough to leave him a message on the back of this beer mat,” he said “ I am honoured to have such a man as yourself gracing my humble café.” So Lafayette sighed and did the PR bit and waited impatiently until the café owner had cleared away the eager crowds who had come to touch their hero and be dazzled by his great fame.
After such excitement we needed to creep anonymously into the Café Des Tribunaux to steady our nerves with a few café calvas. Now this is a most impressive place. All brass and dark wood with clean bogs and friendly waiters who ask to take your photograph and who don’t need to be asked their names or be told that they’re beautiful just to get them to do so.
Then Lafayette went on a secret mission down one of the side streets for his friend, B.T. You see B.T. wanted to go and retire to France one day where he thought the people were more stupid and where he planned to sell them second rate forgeries of Algerian passports so that they could con their way through UK Border Control control. Sadly B.T. wasn’t terribly sure where France actually was, other than being across the sea somewhere, so a map was required to start him off on his new career.
Now it was time to eat so the Nerds, noting that all the French people in the know were cramming into the Tout Va Bien, did likewise and were rewarded with coquilles Saint Jacques and other such fishy delicacies for lunch. For some reason Froggy wasn’t happy with the service in this place either, and the conversation went as follows: “You’re moaning again.” “No I’m not!” “ Yes you are” “No I’m not, I don’t moan, it’s just the way I talk.” Lafayette was not convinced.
Last stop on the way back to the ferry was in the Cactus Bar where we basked in the sun, drank more beer and vowed we would come back one day and ramble all over the place providing we didn’t get our equipment nicked by French thieves. We had all had a good time and even got to practice our French so the trip hadn’t been entirely wasted.
The True Story
We went to Dieppe
We were lazy and didn’t do any rambling
We didn’t really give a shit, and
We didn’t miss those who didn’t come with us and thought we ought to have rambled.
Thanks to Froggy for organizing bits of it and to Lafayette for organizing other bits. Thanks to Matt and Bronco for coming along, being good company and putting up with the two prima donnas. Thanks to the French for their friendliness and tolerance.
Those Present – Froggy, Matt, Bronco and Lafayette.
Wednesday 10th October.
You will notice the unfortunate absence of a couple of NERDS on this trip. Still, four’s a quorum (as are three), but two NERDS together is classed only as a couple of blokes going for a drink. The reason for this “NERDS Lite” trip was that Sandyballs had been threatened with not having any balls at all if he went abroad again ( something to do with spending too much time recently in Frankfurt ), and B.T. was again piston broke.
And so it was that the ones who did go assembled at the back of The Seven Sisters (ferry) with all their rucksacks, crampons, boots, wet weather gear, Kendal mint cake etc. looking forward to a couple of days hard scrambling over the cliffs around Dieppe so that they could take back tales of fierce bravery and derring-do to those poor souls who were unable to take part.
First things first. Get a table, make enough noise so that no-one else comes near you, go to the Duty Free shop and buy a bottle of brandy so that you don’t keep having to squabble about who’s turn it is to keep going to the bar and get the drinks. Oh, and keep an eye out just in case the barman decides you’re taking the piss and decides to throw you off in mid Channel.
Having got the essentials sorted out, the pleasantly sunny morning passed in a sort of alcoholic haze until disaster struck. Lafayette noticed one of the barmaids dreamily holding a notice in front of her stating (apparently) that she was “hors de service”. Not being able to resist this gift of an opportunity Lafayette asked her when normal service would be resumed and how much she cost. There was a shriek of Gallic rage at this perceived impertinence; the barmaid called her male colleague who chased Lafayette round the deck, and when he failed to catch him wreaked his revenge on the NERDS’s
rucksacks, crampons, boots, wet weather gear, Kendal mint cake etc by pitching it all over the side.
Oh dear! The Nerds were mortified at Lafayette’s stupidity. How were they going to ramble now? How could they go back and face their fellow Nerds, especially Sandyballs, and confess they hadn’t been able to walk anywhere? Easy peasy, they thought, we’ll just get Froggy who is the (second) biggest fantasist amongst us to spin some tale about where we’ve been and nobody will be any the wiser. Sorted.
And so we checked into the Aguado where Bronco shared with Froggy and Lafayette shared with Matt (rooms that is). We looked out of the window where the sun was shining on the seafront and spotted the chip vans and ice-cream stalls and started to feel hungry. This seemed like a good opportunity to go for a stroll – not a ramble, Lafayette had seen to that – and see what there was to see.
It was a glorious afternoon, the sky and the sea were blue and the promenade was bathed in the sun. The Nerds were only sad that they couldn’t do what they had really come to do so settled for nonching along the seafront in the warmth eating Froggy’s chips and slurping ice-cream. There were girlies in skimpy bathing costumes running screaming into the sea. There were interesting buildings like the casino and the castle to see, and there was lots of beer to drink outside the old Copacabana Café where we tarried for a couple of hours and drank many tearful toasts to the other home bound Nerds who couldn’t be with us . How we missed them!
After a little snooze to mitigate our grief (about not being with our other friends and not being able to ramble) we decided to go out to eat something before we wasted away with sorrow. First of all we found ourselves in a bar whose main customers were little dogs. The bar tender pulled down the outer metal door to within two feet of the pavement as a hint that closure was imminent and we wondered whether we were going to be incarcerated all night on a diet of wotsits and Ricard. However we were pleased to see that the French managed to get over this minor difficulty in their search for alcohol by lying on the pavement and rolling into the bar. So that’s how we exited after trading a few insults about the outcome of the next weekend’s rugby match with the local natives. (Ho, ho, we smashed the French so that’s another bar we can’t go back to)
Finally that day we had an excellent meal in a nearby restaurant (forgotten the name, but they’re all good in Dieppe) where Froggy was just about to go into a strop about the lack of filet de boeuf on the menu when the waitress came over and offered him another sort of meat by waggling her tits at him and saying what an honour it was to have such a famous author at her establishment . This hussy like behaviour seemed to mollify Froggy and yet another strop type crisis was narrowly averted.
We rounded off the day by going to the Tout Va Bien bar on the front and having a long philosophical discussion over coffee and (lots of) calvados about how Statins gives you a dimp lick (sic). Guess who initiated this fascinating topic. And so to bed.
Thursday 11th October
Lafayette was woken by Matt snoring gently into his ear. It must have been quite a night, last night, he thought. Time for breakfast. We were informed of the old French habit of buying your own croissants and being allowed to sit in someone’s café to eat them – provided you paid them for the privilege and the coffee, so off we went to the bakers.
After trying to persuade Froggy not to spend 25 minutes trying to extract every last centime from the Nerds whip purse to avoid breaking into a new 5 euro note, and to just pay the woman, we drifted into the Café de La Paix to indulge in the vile ritual of dipping pastries into coffee cups and spreading crumbs everywhere.
Matts said he recognized the owner of the place from when he had been a galley slave on the Chartres many years ago, so Lafayette enquired and name dropped a bit exaggerating his own modest part in driving this famous vessel on to the rocks many years previously.
The café owner dropped on to one knee in awe and tried to kiss the hem of Lafayette’s anorak. “My good friend Jean-Claude Lagroue (one of the old PAF bosses) will be honoured if you would be gracious enough to leave him a message on the back of this beer mat,” he said “ I am honoured to have such a man as yourself gracing my humble café.” So Lafayette sighed and did the PR bit and waited impatiently until the café owner had cleared away the eager crowds who had come to touch their hero and be dazzled by his great fame.
After such excitement we needed to creep anonymously into the Café Des Tribunaux to steady our nerves with a few café calvas. Now this is a most impressive place. All brass and dark wood with clean bogs and friendly waiters who ask to take your photograph and who don’t need to be asked their names or be told that they’re beautiful just to get them to do so.
Then Lafayette went on a secret mission down one of the side streets for his friend, B.T. You see B.T. wanted to go and retire to France one day where he thought the people were more stupid and where he planned to sell them second rate forgeries of Algerian passports so that they could con their way through UK Border Control control. Sadly B.T. wasn’t terribly sure where France actually was, other than being across the sea somewhere, so a map was required to start him off on his new career.
Now it was time to eat so the Nerds, noting that all the French people in the know were cramming into the Tout Va Bien, did likewise and were rewarded with coquilles Saint Jacques and other such fishy delicacies for lunch. For some reason Froggy wasn’t happy with the service in this place either, and the conversation went as follows: “You’re moaning again.” “No I’m not!” “ Yes you are” “No I’m not, I don’t moan, it’s just the way I talk.” Lafayette was not convinced.
Last stop on the way back to the ferry was in the Cactus Bar where we basked in the sun, drank more beer and vowed we would come back one day and ramble all over the place providing we didn’t get our equipment nicked by French thieves. We had all had a good time and even got to practice our French so the trip hadn’t been entirely wasted.
The True Story
We went to Dieppe
We were lazy and didn’t do any rambling
We didn’t really give a shit, and
We didn’t miss those who didn’t come with us and thought we ought to have rambled.
Thanks to Froggy for organizing bits of it and to Lafayette for organizing other bits. Thanks to Matt and Bronco for coming along, being good company and putting up with the two prima donnas. Thanks to the French for their friendliness and tolerance.
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