THE N.E.R.D.S. Rambles 235 & 236.

Ramble No. 235

Those present - Froggy, Sandyballs, Lafayette, Paco, Bronco and Dumpling Dwyer.

The Bramble Ramble.

Wednesday 10th June 2009.


This was a ramble which Mr and Mrs Sandyballs had sussed out some time previously when the weather had been nice and the grass had been short. Not today, though.
The weather was dull and the grass was l-o-n-g, and guess what, we nearly got lost.

Two cars took us to Barkham for the start. We even had Bronco with us since all the
watch shops were closed, and Paco had come along thinking that he was on a late shift. Sandyballs led off over some fields but soon got a bit confused and had to ask the way from a Grim Reaper who was titting about weeding her cabbage patch.

Eventually we righted ourselves and made off towards the top of a bridge up a slippery slope over a disused railway line. Everybody had great fun ascending the slippery slope, not, I hasten to say because we were all aged, infirm, pissed, or incompetent, but simply because it was a bit slippery. Once on top of the track we realised that nobody had walked along here for at least a hundred years ( apart from
La Famille Sandyballs ) and that’s why the track resembled an impenetrable jungle.

Sandyballs led us through brambles (see ramble title), nettles, wetness, shite, frogspawn, and other unmentionable nasty things until we packed in all this adventuring and felt safer wandering through a field where a bull was guarding his harem from unwelcome NERDS’ attentions.

Finally we got to The Royal Oak where we sat outside under a sort of canopy in the drizzle and where Lafayette got a text from B.T. who was in France and missing the NERDY chaffish banter he had so loved. Dumpling too was within a short time of retiring having bankrupted the Foreign Office with his mega lump sum, and was considering a part time job as a sandwich runner for the I.O.s at Newhaven. Sadly, times had become hard and all the Newhaven budget had been ring fenced to keep
The Engineer from packing up. So no more cushy jobs.

Paco and Froggy opened up a smokers’ corner at the end of the table and Lafayette decided he would try eating a posset for dessert. Not many people know this, but these are small, somewhat effeminate but rather shy, furry mammals which make excellent eating in the appropriate culling season, and which, mixed with custard, taste rather like slightly demented seagull chicks. Anyway Lafayette was certainly enjoying his until the landlady noticed her mistake and came and swapped it for a somewhat more boring tarte aux pommes.

Lafayette’s notes here record that he got mud on Sandyballs’ jeans, (so what?), that Froggy reckoned he dribbles pee in his boxer shorts and that Paco had become smitten with Susan Doyle (the famous Scottish page 3 pin-up girl) - so no accounting for taste.

Lafayette couldn’t think of anything more to say about this day’s mayhem, besides, he was eager to start next month’s write-up, the notes for which were now fresher in his mind ……and so here is…….

Ramble No. 236 called imaginatively “ The Ramble which Froggy set.”

and which related what happened to:

Froggy, Lafayette, Sandyballs, B.T, Matt, and Dumpling (again).


Today the weather was okayish and B.T. had flown back from France especially to take part in the chaffish NERDY banter which he had been missing (see elsewhere).
Dumpling had also turned up because he’d heard there was money to be made from listening to how B.T. had invested all his own money in gilt edged Algerian shares.
So, two born every minute, and let’s get on with the ramble.

After Lafayette had managed to dislodge said Dumpling from his house phone where he had been on to his agent to put in a bid for The Engineer, they were both picked up by B.T. in his brand spanking new, top of the range, Volvo which had been paid for out of his lump sum. Next, on to Newhaven International to collect Sandyballs and whisk everyone off to Froggy’s for an aperitif.

Froggy had been up for the last three days and three nights, with no sleep whatsoever, cooking, cleaning, hoovering, chasing out all the cockroaches, installing girlies on poles and generally making the place respectable enough to host the NERDS.
(You don’t get this level of service at Cords meetings, you know). Anyway, he had mown the lawn, chucked out all the dwarves that looked like Philby, (sensitive, you see) and got us all installed in the garden with lots of food and drink so that we could be bribed into attending one of his rambles.

We were joined by Matt, The Holey One, who seemed in good form after his recent operation , and while we sat in the garden debating whether to eat the biscuits and go home, or eat the biscuits and go on a ramble, or just eat the biscuits, Matt told us that Nobby Clarke was now his new best friend and they were both hoping to become ordained as cardinals together and go to Rome. Lafayette looked at the calvados he had been drinking, wondered whether it was really making him go mad and hastily suggested we got off our fat arses and go walking.

Well, the route was out of the back end of Seaford, across some fields, get a bit lost, carry on a bit more, get a bit more lost, scratch Froggy’s head, go left, no, go right, up a long, long hill, oh God, this is steep, are we nearly there yet? Down a gully, I thought there were some cows here, they were on the left last time I came, I think this is right, now I’m not so sure but we’re all having a good time, aren’t we? Silence.

Finally our ultimate destination of Alfriston saved us from utter starvation. In The Smugglers we joined the orderly queue of Old Farts, tourists, mothers, mother’s children, mother’s sister’s children, people who had forgotten to get a bag of crisps and came back into the queue to ask their sister to get one for them, people who couldn’t quite make up their minds whether to have chips with their burger and do you only do childrens’ portions on Tuesday and stop tugging at my skirt, Annabel or I shall get cross….. The NERDS waited and waited and waited.

Finally when the sun had been round and set at least twice we got paid some attention.
Surliness? You’ve never seen surliness like this, mind you, the pub had only put one member of bar staff on at a busy lunchtime so we couldn’t really expect to be served on the same day. It wasn’t like the last time we had come here either. No friendly barmaid from Poland with big tits came to ask us if the food was OK (it wasn’t).
Everyone seemed harassed and in a rush.

We decamped across the road to The George which turned out to be a much nicer pub with multiple barmaids, good beer and fast service. Sat in its pleasant garden B.T. was eyeing up the thirteen year old serving wench, and Matt was telling Sandyballs that
webwashing was a mortal sin (does he mean looking at rude Czech girlies with what look like sticks of celery in their mouths?)

Froggy wanted an icecream so he went across the road and embarrassed the nice refined lady behind the counter by telling her he was a loony and could she hurry up, please, because he had to take his room mates back to the asylum (It’s been done before) Then he “entertained” the bus queue by telling them he was a famous author and offering to read extracts from his latest book to them.

He got back to Seaford more or less in one piece and led us into The Shore (pub) for a final comfy sofa drink or two. Then we went back to his place for tea and our presence provided his wife with yet further grounds for divorcing him because she couldn’t begin to cook her dinner.

But…..it had been a good ramble and a noble effort from Froggy so thanks to him for the day out. We will remember never to go to The Smugglers ever again and hope that The George long remains the good pub we had found it to be.



Lafayette.