N.E.R.D.S. Ramble No. 247.
8th - 10th June 2010.
The Isle of Wight Ramble.
Those Present - Froggy, Paco, B.T., Sandyballs, Lafayette.
Day One - Getting There.
That day the NERDS were not well. Below is a list of their then ailments:
Lafayette - sore throat and writers’ cramp (from last month)
Sandy balls - poorly, gouty toe with pins inside it.
B. T. - a feeling of impending doom.
Paco - a feeling of not quite being on this planet.
Froggy - Obsessive Compulsive Syndrome.
Paco had volunteered to drive because he’d got a car that would hold five fat bastards
and which we hoped would get us down to The New Forest in one piece. Lafayette had been promised lots of walks round the N.F. with opportunities to pet ponies, moon about in leafy glades and get drunk on local ice cream - but he was cruelly deceived and it was not to be. Nor did the weather look too hopeful - I mean, when was the last time you saw Carol Kirkwood dressed in a diving suit to tell you about a few possible mild showers? (Nice tits, though).
Before picking up Sandyballs Lafayette decided he needed a few bottles of water to mix with his medecine and so a stop was made at the kiosk opposite Lewes station.
Unfortunately this was not one of those places where you can dodge into and say “six bottles of water and a Daily Worker, please” and get away in less than thirty seconds. Oh, no. There were just three people ahead of Lafayette in the queue but they’d all been obviously sent out to get both lunch and dinner for the staff of most of the factories in Lewes. And to make things worse the shop people were laboriously buttering each piece of bread and then it was “Do you want grilled porpoise in it as well as that piece of mermaid’s belly button you originally specified? And was that with chips? Good job that Lafayette was the patient type because after thirty five minutes or so Paco came out to see if he’d absconded with the whip.
Anyway, all watered up, we finally went to pick up Sandyballs who was shamefacedly standing there in true sartorial shambles. Pleading poorly foot syndrome he had had the temerity that day to get dressed in sandals with socks!!! Lafayette was appalled; What a faux pas! What would the NERDS say? What would lady Gaga say? What would Willy Walsh say? (Two of Lafayette’s current role models). Lafayette himself would never stoop as low as this however bad his throat felt. Fortunately the NERDS were squabbling over the contents of a hipflask or some such and failed to notice this
gross social gaffe. And so on to Hampshire.
On arrival at The Kings Arms in Lymington The NERDS immediately smirked at the barmaid (Sam) and ordered four pints of Ringwood (with one pint of lager for one of us who claimed he was suffering from a mimsy tummy [not mumsy bum]). This, the local beer was excellent and the expected rain had not yet reached this far south. Unfortunately, because our rooms weren’t quite ready we were denied the possibility of an afternoon’s crash and so, reluctantly, we were dragooned into a post prandial stroll by Sandyballs who seemed to be the only one with a game plan.
The stroll took us along the pretty docky seafront where twats with blazers and club ties were waffling on about tacking , mizzling, casting off, walking the plank and what a good job the Conservatives had got back in again wasn’t it? Froggy who was having problems now with his mimsy bladder found a Dr Who Loo. What’s one of these? You may well ask. Well, both Lafayette and Sandyballs noticed that when Froggy went in he looked like Froggy, but when he came out he was old, bent and had a funny beard. So he had obviously time-travelled (forwards). Eventually Lafayette who had only had three pints of Ringwood for lunch worked out that it wasn’t actually Froggy who had come out, but someone else. Another mystery of the universe solved!
Deciding that if we couldn’t beat the Yacht Twats we might as well join them, we had an ice cream and repaired to the Yacht Club for a few gin and tonics. Every one was sitting around in wealthy, self satisfied splendour (the rest of the customers, not the NERDS) and so we bankrupted the whip on yachty drinks and sought directions from the yachty barmaid (nice tits, again). Sandyballs thought he had vaguely followed what she had been saying about where to go but whether this had anything to do with part two of our walk was anyone’s guess.
Out we went, and walked round the point (that’s nautical language for up the road) and thereafter ensued a mild dispute amongst the NERDS about the next day’s route. Lafayette said he had been faithfully promised that we should go all round the New Forest because he had been running short of coconuts at home and wanted to gather some from the foresty trees. Nobody had the heart to disillusion him about the state of the local flora and fauna (apparently it wasn’t coconut season until late September when the locals pulled the pigs off truffling duties and sent them up the trees) so by force majeur Lafayette was persuaded to visit the Isle of Wight because the coconuts were better there (allegedly, perhaps).
We wandered au bord de la mer for a bit until Paco’s middle age began to tell on him.
So we sat down and watched all the young people sprinting around with dogs, getting fit and whatnot, and then we short cutted back into town feeling that we couldn’t impose more of this gruelling walking on poor Paco (besides, we were getting thirsty)
Back in town and a bit disorientated we asked for further directions from a lady who was dead-heading triffids in her front garden. She was quite willing (to tell us the way) and said her garden was known as lost corner because everyone er…got lost there. Mindful of the Dr Who Lavatory, we scurried off not wishing to fall through a tear in the space/time continuum and subsequently find ourselves in a place with no pubs.
Fortunately we got back to The Kings Arms OK and were shown to our rooms.
Ah, yes the rooms…. Sandyballs, B.T. and Lafayette were in The Family Room.
This was sort of on the low side of almost adequate because at least we had a kettle
(no cups, mind), a telly, en-suite shower, no coat hangers (for B.T.’s tights) a choice of black or a white rats to keep us company and a smell of fresh paint. Sandyballs ‘bagged’ the biggest double bed before anyone else could opt for it and Lafayette ‘bagged’ the cot nearest the ‘en suite’ so he wouldn’t have so far to go for his midnight pee. That left the bed nearest the wardrobe for BT who was later coerced into making tea, coffee and other assorted drinks for everyone! So not too bad really. Froggy and Paco’ s room was a bit more basic - no ensuite, no mirror, no towels to go with the no en suite and no choice of rats. Pretty grim, you might say. So the first thing B.T. did was to make a lightning sortie chez Pacfrog and nick all the coat hangers. “ Now at least we’ll have something to eat, “ he said “ You forgot the rats,” said Lafayette.
Having settled in, Pacfrog went outside to smoke something nasty and then we all went off for aperitifs at another nautical pub called the Ship Inn and Co. ‘along the point’ We sat outside where the smokers weren’t allowed to smoke (tee, hee) and where Froggy entertained us with funny jokes he had heard last week at his primary school (Lafayette particularly liked the one about the hen, the frog and the library books).
Back at the Kings Arms we almost named that day’s experiences The Recession Ramble because of the shitty state of Pacfrog’s room but instead listened to B.T.’s conspiracy theories about Froggy’s French i/d card (wot?) how the French are determined to rip off all foreigners and take away their pensions, and how the Albigensian Movement for Democracy had been infiltrated by the French Taleban
as far back as the eleventh century. ( So, are you going to support your adopted country in the World Cup, or not then, B.T.?)
The evening was spent in some Bengali restaurant where the birianis were too dry and the waiter was too above his station. I mean, fancy telling Lafayette that you weren’t supposed to eat curry with your fingers. He’s been to places where the natives eat curries with their enemies’ fingers - which they’d cut off in battle.
We trailed back along the High street and came across a real whiz looking French restaurant which we’d so far managed to overlook. Tomorrow, perhaps, although B.T. warned us that the French used to feed snails to the Cathars in the thirteenth century to make them blow up so that the King of France could excommunicate them all and get his hands on their massive assets (Was Carol Kirkwood a Cathar, then?). Anyway, back to The Kings Arms where we renewed our fragile relationship with barmaid
Sam and where Paco suddenly lost his cool about the I.S.U., the Independent Stalinist Union to which he had once belonged but to his chagrin had been taken over by the
N.C.P.S., the Nancy Corporate Pipesmokers’ Syndicate which had blocked his promotion and forced him to retire prematurely. What bastards!
Lafayette was unable to stand any more of this self pitying twaddle so went to bed -
only to be woken by a thunderous knocking further down the corridor when Sandyballs in his cups (for a change) had begun hammering on the next room’s door and demanding that Lafayette let him in (ha, ha). Fortunately B.T. managed to smooth over the angry person who had been disturbed in mid-coitus , and after a few doses of rum and cherry cake the Family Room NERDS all crashed out.
Day Two - The Isle of Wight Ramble.
Sandyballs awoke early craving tea. Since FamilyNERDS had a kettle this would be no problem. There were even teabags and a bit of milk and stuff. Oh dear! the ensuing brew tasted as if the rats had pissed in it. Everyone’s tasted the same - sort of like rat-piss. Sandyballs had given up by now and returned grumbling to his pit. Up rose B.T., bright eyed and bushy tailed (sort of) and volunteered to make coffee. This turned out to be not quite as vile, although we had used all the milk by now. Lafayette came up with an original solution. Let’s put Spanish brandy in it and pretend it’s milk. Seemed to work all right. Maybe if Lafayette puts empty brandy bottles out on his doorstep the milkman will change them for full ones - who knows?
Froggy strolled in and drank the rest of the milk. Said Paco was poncing around in a cool dressing gown wearing a hat with one of those little tassels on the top - No shit!
NERDS went down for a fried breakfast and met Marisol - all 4 foot 11inches of her.
She was Spanish, blonde, cooked a mean breakfast and was in charge of the pub.
Better be nice to her then. She was OK, even spoke English, had all the attributes to be a perfect wife. No, not for you B.T., you’ve had three already! Better go out before any more bad ideas surface.
So a long walk to the ferry terminal where most of us get cheapo senior tickets with one glaring exception. What’s that, Froggy? You’re still at primary school? No senior ticket for you then. Grump Grump. Next is standing in the footies queue to get on board. Grump, grump, still. NERDS get to the front of the queue and get RLE. Too many people on this ferry; you’re not posh enough; wait for the next one in ten minutes. OK, not a problem; it’s a nice day most of us thought. But from the rear came an ever increasing ‘Grump, grump everso grump. They never did this at my
primary school blah, blah, blah.etc, etc.’ In the end we got on board but found there was no bar. Wot sort of ferry is this then? Oh well, it’s only a half hour crossing.
On the lovely Isle of Wight we all piled off, rambled twenty five yards and dived into The Kings Head. “Do you sell coconuts?” asked Lafayette. “No, but we have got some beer.” said the friendly barman “I’m afraid all our coconut pigs have been loaned out to the mainland where they’re up trees on the far side of that New Forest Thingy.”
“ Bugger!” thought Lafayette. “I’ll have to drink more beer. I don’t suppose you sell pedometers do you, only we walk so far on these rambles that it’s nice to keep a track.”“ No, sorry, “ said the kind man. “We’re fresh out of pedometers at the moment; it’s those coconut pigs you know; they took them all over to the mainland with them.”
The NERDS made the best of a bad job since there were no coconuts and drank a lot of the local Yates beer. “It’s our pigs that make this beer, you know,” said the kind barman. “They mash it with their trotters; that’s what gives it its special flavour.”
“That is, “he added “when they’re not out looking for coconuts.” Lafayette started to vaguely wonder what had been in that special milk he’d put in his coffee that morning.
Sandyballs insisted we ramble further so we went about a mile round the harbour and visited a local primary school. Here Froggy interviewed the kids in the playground and got some more jokes for his stand up comic routine material. However, the lure of the Piggy Beer drew us back to the Kings Head and we had an excellent cheap fish and chip meal there for the price of half a coconut each. Lafayette began to compose a song along the lines of “This is the shortest ramble we’ve ever been on!” but while he thought he’d got the lyrics right he wasn’t sure about the tune and decided to let Froggy have a crack at this when he got home and out of hearing
On the ferry Froggy seemed a bit perturbed about some feud he’d had with somebody at work. Nobody we knew, thank God, but Paco lent a sympathetic ear. Back on dry land we thought we’d go for a drink (how novel!) and wandered off to The Waggon and Horses which was ostensibly closed. Grump, grump, grump, we went across the car park until all of a sudden another kind barman appeared and offered us the use of his pub garden as long as we behaved soberish and didn’t go on about feuds at work.
This worked fine; the weather was pleasantly warm and everyone was mellow. Paco and Lafayette went back into the pub for another round and nearly got loved to death by Milo, the pub boxer who nearly broke Lafayette’s leg with his enthusiastically wagging tail. Finally we thought we ought to get back to The Kings Head in Lymington otherwise Marisol might be missing us.
But the well laid plans of NERDS oft go astray. Half way back Paco realised he wasn’t wearing his dressing gown any more; and what was worse this was where he kept his car keys! Panic, panic, panic! Nor was it one of those special dressing gowns equipped with a satnav that found its own way back to its owner when you whistled. What to do? First get back to the pub and have a drink to get rid of the stress. This we did; rang up The Isle of Pigs but no keys; rang up the ferry but ring back onTuesday; rang up the Doggy Pub and bingo! The dressing gown was lining Milo’s doggy basket and he didn’t want to give it up. He’d also swallowed the car keys. Looks like Paco had some hard decisions to make, ie. Get back to the pub, get the dog drunk, extricate the keys somehow and sneak off with his dressing gown.
A couple of hours later our lift back home had been assured. The dog had been really generous and even told Paco under which bush he had sicked up the car keys.
Good Boy, Milo! That’s worth another drink to celebrate. Let’s go to Brasserie Gerard for dinner.
This was a good place to go. They did proper French food - like steak and chips and proper French wine - like red,white and rosay (please excuse spelling; only Mrs Lafayette can operate the accents on this gadget [I can = rosé]; ed). The one waiter was French so B.T. acted as interpreter for the main course, and the other was Iranian so Paco was deputed to try him in Turkish after Lafayette’s Urdu had failed. Sadly they both spoke English as did the girly waitress with the short hair who looked French but came from Winchester. Anyway, after a few glasses of wine and a couple of forkfulls of Froggy’s chips who cared? The meal -coquilles Saint Jacques, steak, chips, Froggy’s chips, cheese, vin rouge, vin rosé, and ice cream for Lafayette was very pleasant. Pity about the size of the bill; and all for us poor NERDS who only eat like sparrows at the best of times.
Back at The Kings Arms and in the Family/NERDS room one of us kept going on about somebody nasty at work (Newhaven) who was (allegedly) being machiaevellian, cruel, unsympathetic, horrible, wicked, awful, even crueller and “not being nice to me”. By now we had all got fed up with hearing this terrible person’s name being touted about and began singing a lovely song to drown out the waves of paranoia coming from the end of one of the beds.
The song which was brought out at regular intervals went something like this:
Tin of Beans, Tin of Beans , riding through the glen;
Tin of Beans, Tin of Beans, with his band of men;
Feared by the Frog, loved by the Dog; (No not her, how dare you!)
Tin of Beans, Tin of Beans, Tin of Beans.
Good eh? Lafayette is now thinking of compiling a short collection of NERDS’ ditties in a slim volume (very slim). The above will take its rightful place as No.1
Together with such classics as ‘This is the worst ramble we’ve ever been on’
and ‘ I’m a Polish Gypsy (P.A., P.A., P.A.) - remember that one?
Day Three - Getting Back.
This was the bit Philby hated most in Shropshire - the final Wrap Party when you knew that Reality beckoned her boring finger at you and the drinking had to stop.
But not quite yet.
We descended to pay our dues and to gob up the last big fry-up. Little Marisol continued her usual high standard of catering. She had imported her brother, Josay (accents again, I’m afraid ) who seemed to have had more wives than even B.T. and actually looked quite Spanish in a dago-ish sort of way ( not like Paco who must have been a little blond angel when he was born).
Marisol told us her life story, Josay told us his life story , Froggy told everyone about his book, Lafayette told everybody about his terrible experience on The Chartres, Sandyballs told everybody about his toe and B.T. told everybody about the iniquities of the French government. At the end of all this we felt we all knew each other quite well. And so we left Lymington. Lafayette felt the rooms in the pub reminded him of the crappy rooms in the Louis Armstrong in Dover when he was on relief in the 70‘s; and he felt rather nostalgic; Sandyballs reserved judgement.
And so back on the road which surprisingly wound onwards to The Black Rabbit at Arundel. We always end up here, we always sit in the same spot and it usually rains. Not today though; the rain held off and we had a last pint (or so) of Badger Beer and sang a few choruses of ‘ Tin of Beans’ when the atmosphere got a bit fraught. We decided that there was in fact a difference between Old Gits and Old Trouts - The former are NERDS and pub customers, and the latter are parasites who faff about and get in the way of the former. Twas ever thus.
We agreed that in general it had been a successful three days. There had been two interesting drunken rants, lots of exciting food, drink and people, and nobody had got seriously injured.
Thanks of course go to Paco for driving
To Froggy for still being our ‘Yoof Rep’ and taking photos
To Sandyballs for organising the “walks”
To B.T. for taking the big Photos .
And to Lafayette for writing this stuff and making up songs.
Now time to detox.
Ha, Ha, good luck.
Lafayette.
