April 2013 Ramble!

NERDS' Ramble No. 281 - 10th March 2013.


Those Present – Froggy, Paco, Matt, Lafayette, Sandyballs and Bronco.

The Froggy Non-Ramble.

The NERDS were now well into the run-up to Froggy's grand retirement, and as a special honour were allowing him to be in charge of today's ramble. Given Froggy's reputation for getting everything dead well organised we were all eagerly anticipating a long walk, a good meal and lots of drinks. Well, in the end I suppose two out of three might not have been bad going.

The joining instructions for once were unambiguous – all meet at Seaford station. Fine, no problems so far. Froggy led us in the general direction of The Boot which he had thoughtfully ascertained would be open at the present unsociable hour. We decided to drink outside to get away from all the Old Trouts who, even at that early hour, were clogging up the pub to drink tea, or whatever Old Trouts drink in the morning.

Outside all the seats were covered in the previous night's rain, so after Matt had insisted we move tables about three times we settled down with our pints to discuss matters of great import. Sandyballs reported that he had ordered the teeshirts for the 25th celebration ramble and they would cost us each a huge amount for the privilege of owning one.  Moan, moan, still it had to be done. Next, he said Madame The Home Secretary had once again personally invited him to take over the running of Gatwick South Immigration control that summer for the princely sum of £18 per hour. Meanwhile she, as supervising officer, would sit around in the tea room on a salary of about £150 grand with her feet up  drinking wine. Lafayette applauded this and said he thought Madame Home Sec was obviously a decent type of manager who knew how to get the best out of her staff.

Paco who was distraught at the recent death of Baroness Thatcher sobbed that he would be unable to attend her funeral if we all cleared off to Spain in the near future, so Sandyballs said he'd have a private word with Madame Home Sec. and see what he could do about getting him a personal invite. Froggy availed himself of the opportunity given him to speak by the “ talking beer mug” (no vases of nasturtiums this month) and said we all ought to drink up and carry on rambling. No-one took a blind bit of notice  so Froggy went off and got another round in.

While Froggy was away, Matt put on his meany meany gloves ( the ones with no fingers) and said that as Froggy was leaving the office soon he was taking on the responsibilirty of clearing his locker out of old landing cards, HO files, porn mags and superfluous condoms. Lafayette pointed out that any Fray Bentos meat pies should be straightaway returned to Hungerford otherwise Froggy would be summoned back to do the washing up, and Sandyballs said that any mysterious manuscripts entitled “memoirs” should be torn up and fed to the seagulls.

Froggy came back with the pints and said we really did have to ramble after these because we were meeting Bronco in the Laughing Fish for lunch and he'd be getting lonely. However after this one another pint ensued, the morning was turning out well, the sun was out, the seats had dried, the Harveys was good and a dispute arose as to whether Matt and Mike Clarke were one and the same person – like Superman. I mean you never saw them in the same place at the same time, did you? And Matt certainly had dubious ancestry coming from the Isle of Krypton which allegedly  turned you green if you got too close to it.

At last the Routemaster was worn down by NERDS' lethargy and persuaded to allow us to get the bus to Denton rather than ramble through the Newhaven wetlands. Time had since marched on and Malcolm might have bought the pub or at least another flashy 4x4 by the time we got there.

Since it was nearly lunch time and since this had been delayed so much by an inconsiderate Froggy, Sandyballs felt a compelling need to visit the chip shop on Seaford High street where he was a regular customer on rambling days. Then all the Old Git NERDS piled on to the bus leaving Young Git NERD to pay his own bus fare once again and we all rode off to Denton.

I suppose you could say that that day's ramble took place between the bus stop at Denton Corner and The Laughing Fish – all one half a mile of it. Anyway, rounding the corner in sight of the pub we saw Bronco sat outside drinking a coke or something innocuous. We dragged him inside and found that the Australians who had previously run the establishment were no longer there but there was rather a delicious barmaid called Krista who was at our service.

Krista herself might have been worth the journey (she was) but the rest of The Laughing Fish experience was pretty rubbish. The food was substandard and overpriced and the service took far too long. Poor Krista did her best but she seemed to have no help at all and was trying to deal with two groups of hungry people. So, saddened that yet another pub was failing in the NERDS' approved stakes we upped and headed for The Engineer. At least we knew this place would be clean, serve fantastic meals and have a politically correct landlord who would serve us excellent beer (well, at least we felt comfortablre there even if everything else was crap).

As usual the place was full of kids but Froggy managed to get Bob's ear and ascertain that his retirement party would still be on the following week. Mucho cheese and prawns were going to be produced beacause we know that Bob always does an excellent cheese board for occasions like this. I mean, Froggy only gets to retire once – what will he have to talk about after?

And so the latest “ramble” came to an end. We had drunk a lot of Harvey's and walked a bit ; seen a nice barmaid and a crap pub; got Bronco back in the NERDS and confirmed Froggy's party next week. Should all be fun – can't wait.

Lafayette.

April 2013 Joining Instructions

Fellow Nierdos,

This month's ramble will take place on Wednesday 10th April. The plan is that Harry (and Lord Charles)? take the 10:28 /10:38 train from Lewes / Newhaven Town and arrive at Seaford Station at 10:46, where they will be met by the Seaford Contingent. I have Googled all the Seaford pubs' opening times but most of them, including the White Lion seem unwilling to provide suitable libation before 11:30hrs., although the V Bar looks as if it is opened from 08:00hrs and the Old Boot could be opened from 10:00hrs? I'll do some further research before the ramble.

Weather permitting - snort - hilarious! We shall be walking to the Flying Fish, one way or another, and hopefully meeting up with Malcolm for lunch @ 13:00hrs. Trainers should be ok as there shouldn't be any mud.  Apologies for the late joining instructions.

The 8 duty-left Frogster

March 2013 Ramble

NERDS' Ramble No. 280. 20^th March 2013.

Those Present -  Lafayette, Sandyballs, Froggy, Matt, Paco, The Bish.

Jack and Jill Ramble

The NERDS met en masse on the train. Matt reckoned it was a Catholic conclave come to undermine the present smooth running of The Organisation (NERDS) despite most of us protesting we weren't and had never been Catholics. ( Matt always loves a bit of drama and has recently got overheated by the election of a new pope – he really wishes he were a cardinal dressed in a frock and had had a hand in the latest grand conspiracy!). Anyway, Froggy brought us all down to earth with a graphic description of how he had been sweating in the shower (so that's what they call it now) over some “Z” list film star he'd seen on telly that morning.

Sandyballs met us at Lewes with that day's battle plan to hand; we were to go to Hassocks first and then try to get to the Windmills Jack and Jill up a hill (of course) where we were to have lunch.

S.B. was suffering from looking after- the grandchild-and catching-his lurgy-syndrome, while Lafayette had his usual cold, so both were looking forward to some alcohol to take their minds off their woes.

A change of train at Brighton and we were on our way. Froggy sat there and told us he was worried about what he would do after retirement. So were all of us. The idea of Froggy ringing us up in the middle of the night to suggest a supplementary ramble the next day, or “how about we all go down to the pub and listen to my new song and guitar playing,” did not somehow have the allure of some other aspects of NERDS' leisure. We should have to find him some sort of fascinating hobby like er...... cooking or photography or cabaret singing (in the next town) or taking a couple of years off to spend  some solitary him-time in a Scottish castle drafting his next book, whatever........

So we arrived at The Hassocks Hotel (pub) where the lady kindly let us in early since it was not yet opening time by a couple of minutes and where we had the first beer of the day. All clustered round the table as we were, matters of great import were discussed

BUT – new NERDS' rule; you had to have hold of the vase of primroses – the primrose vase talking stick - to have the right to bore the others with your opinions. Matt started off by claiming that the cords were due soon to close their membership list. Froggy nearly upset the primrose vase trying to grab it to say he had nothing against cords, golfers or other persecuted minorities. Matt again took possession of the flower vase and opined that perhaps Froggy should join Nobby's walking group after retirement – The Gay Gordons – but Froggy was not keen (having snaffled back the talking primrose stick vase), and said he would prefer to supplement his pension by singing songs and accompanying himself on his guitar in pubs.

· Opinion was divided about the wisdom of this and it was decided (another new rule) to have a secondary smaller 'interrupter vase' containing fewer flowers and less water so that side comments could be made. This worked quite well for a while until everybody got so drunk they forgot who was supposed to have the 'talking primrose stick thingy' next, Froggy and Matt were lobbing vases at each other and Sandyballs dragged us all outside to walk our opinions off.

The route to Jack  and Jill took us along a very boggy path involving mucho mud. Most NERDS took this in their stride being real hard types, however one of us was under-dressed as usual (just like Paco in the rain before he bought himself a hoody), but yes, you've guessed it, it was Paco once again who had disdained any form of rambling boot, and instead had donned his ballet shoes not thinking he might have to circumnavigate nasty, shitty puddles. So the NERDS waited until he was in up to his armpits and then generously deigned to pull him out before he drowned. Phew, a narrow squeak!

All along a path next to the main railway line we went, straight, straight, straight. Finally we came out by a railway tunnel and zipped into the Jack and Jill pub which was the pre-amble to climbing up to the windmills (ha, ha!). Grouped around a table again, Sandyballs took hold of the flower vase and told us he hadn't done anything about the teeshirts for the Spanish trip. When we had recovered from the startling effect of this non-piece of news Matt suggested we should have “I love the cords” printed on the front of; said garments. Not much chance of that, we thought and turned our attention to what to have for lunch.

Lunch was generally poor, overpriced and disappointing. All except Lafayette felt they had been swindled. Laf’ said his sausages and red cabbage had been excellent, but Sandyballs pointed out that Laf’ would eat anything and anyway had money to burn. The meal was however somewhat enlightened by the ghost of Troy gliding past to the bog, although we all wondered whether ghosts really need to piss in the afterlife. Paco took the talking vase and told us of how he was occasionally overcome by the red mist (Paco??) and we all waited with bated breath to see whether Matt would complain about the dessert (he didn't).

Anyway leaving this NERDS non-approved pub we ventured into the outside world whereupon Sandyballs wanted to take us on a route to visit the two windmills. Good idea, we thought , let's do some real rambling, but when we got round the corner and saw the huge soggy, boggy path leading up the hill we decided (out of consideration for poor Paco, of course) to put off this climbing feat until the weather got better, in the summer, perhaps, or next year, or some time....

On the way back the going was less muddy although tricky. Most of us kept to the path but Froggy decided to take a 'shortcut' through a field where it seemed a little easier on the boots. Sadly the field turned out to be deceptive and further on became a quagmire. Froggy's Gucci loafers took a real hammering while Paco glided over the slightly damp path with little trouble. Just goes to show that a ballet pump on the path is worth a boot in the miry field (or something like that).

Finally we arrived back at The Hassocks Hotel where we tramped all over their nice carpet and lounged around on their comfy sofas clutching pints of Harveys and vases of flowers. It had been a good ramble despite the cold, the mud and the expensive substandard food ,but at least we had climbed up to.....Oh, no, we hadn't actually managed to do that, had we. Never mind next month is Froggy's retirement ramble bash. Expect dancing girls, confetti, loud music and probably the hand of God on His Chosen One too. Can't wait!

Lafayette.