January 2015 Joining Instructions

Dear NERDS/Darkside,
The next joint ramble will take place on Wednesday 7th Jan 2015 and will start from Newhaven Town Station at 10 30hrs - approx.
I have booked lunch at The Flying Fish in Denton at 13 00hrs - Malcolm, all the girls are dying to see you again so please try to make it for lunch.
The pub is sending me a menu and would like us to make choices before we go, so I shall be sending this out in due course.
Happy Christmas to all.
Charlie/Lafayette.

NERDS' Ramble No. 302  Wed.  10/12/14.

Those Present – Sandyballs, Lafayette, Froggy, Paco, Curly, B.T. Bronco, Mystery Guest.

Christmas Ramble 2014 – “It seems alright to me.” (said in a scottish accent.)

Aye, the NERDS sure know how to party! They all met up at Lewes station

(apart from Mystery Guest and Bronco) and were told by Sandyballs that leg one of the “ramble” would end up at The Brewers – because it's the only pub in Lewes which opens at 10 o'clock. Not a bad idea, we thought, so wound our way round the quaint narrow streets of the town

and through the very pleasant environs of Southover Grange park

where Sandyballs used to take Flintoff  Ryan for his daily walks and where they both used to ogle the Lewes brand of Milfs who used to hang out there with their milflings.

In The Brewers the NERDS

tried the porter (a good breakfast drink) and met Julian, brother of Andy,

who had been a NERD sympathiser and Harveys drinker for many years. Julian said he would like to have accompanied us on our “ramble” that day but he was getting too old to walk and he liked to sit and drink the day away instead. (Sounds like the new brand of NERD in Nerds- Lite

as intiated by Matt (currently in Burma.)

Paco sat there vapour smoking

– a new departure, and showed Lafayette how to indulge in this questionable habit. It was a bit like breathing fog in and out, and Lafayette thought he might not actually take it up permanently. He and Sandyballs agreed to smoke a cigar on the latter's 70^th birthday, and extend this to indulging in whores and cocaine – if they'd managed to save up enough by then. B. T. put himself about a bit, got the drinks in and became Froggy's assistant Quazi for the day. He and Lafayette

had been trying out some new calvados the previous evening and were feeling just a teensy weensy bit jaded that day.

Tearing ourselves away from The Brewers we descended into Lewes and found Bronco in the middle of the shopping centre sans horse and looking lost.

So we gathered him up and dragged him along with the rest of the merry band along Cliffe High Street until we reached The Gardeners Arms. Bronco looked fine, he always looks fine; he said Crunchie (horse) was costing him a fortune in vet's bills because of his age, and we wondered how Crunchie would be able to pay the vet's bills for Bronco when he got really old.

The Gardeners was selling Harvey's Christmas Ale at 7.5% so it was quite strong stuff. Better only have a half. Nice it was, but B.T. thought it too sweet and passed it over to Lafayette to finish. Lafayette hadn't had much breakfast and started seeing stars, blamed it on the Paco fog but was dragged out of the pub by Sandyballs who wanted to go to The Snowdrop to ensure the Mystery Guest was properly received for lunch.

So down to The Snowdrop. (Good job this wasn't a Temperance Ramble) where lurking in the shadows was the Mystery Guest, and surprise, surprise, it turned out to be Mrs Sandyballs (third time for her),

who had got bored with doing christmas shopping and had come along to keep S.B. in order. In due course the rest of the NERDS rolled up having finished their rations of Christmas Ale, and greeted the M.G. with little surprise.

The Snowdrop is justifiably famed for its cuisine as it has an excellent chef and interesting bar staff.

By this stage Lafayette could not remember what he had eaten or drunk and had to rely on the scrawled evidence of a couple of embark cards to refresh his memory. Most people seemed to be eating turkey;

Lafayette vaguely remembered he had had a delightful cheesy stuffed mushroom to start,

and that was preceded by mulled wine, so no wonder the world seemed to be getting even more delightful. Sandyballs had a vague recollection of himself and Lafayette visiting this pub in days of yore to drink Wray and Nephew's rum with coffee. Lafayette had got this habit from some Jamaican relative of his daughter but sadly the present bar man ( dark with a pony tail ) had never heard of it – too young, you see.

However, he said “We've got this calvados stuff intead, I don't know whether you'd like that.” Do popes shit on bears! Much calvados later everyone was swaying around and Sandyballs had fallen asleep on  M.G.'s shoulder.

Much fun was had settling the bill as usual. Mystery Guest took charge as she was probably the most sensible and least drunk by this stage. However it's always a great challenge to make the money add up correctly. Finally it was achieved with no-one decking anybody else and the M.G. Family wandered off to put S.B. to bed.

Los Otros stayed on for a bit just to finish off the calvados bottle, and then Paco had a marvellous idea.

Having spent a large amount of money on his younger daughter's expensive education and made sure she had a driving licence,

Paco rang her up and proposed she bring the family bus over to take all the remaining NERDS back home. Since Laura was a delightful, generous girl, she agreed and so arrived in due course to pour everyone into the car.

What a heroine she was; nobody could remember the journey home (except Laura, we hope), but The NERDS were all incredibly grateful they didn't have to walk anywhere at this stage.

The biggest thanks of the “ramble” undoubtedly go to her. Well done, Laura!

Well, what a christmas it had been for the NERDS. We thank Sandyballs for organising the meal and the M.G., and thanks go to our Special Guests, B.T and Bronco for turning up. It was nice to see you both again.

Lafayette will arrange something in the new year for the next one – we may even see some of the Gatwick Darkside again.

Merry Christmas to All.

Lafayette.

November 2014 Ramble

NERDS' Ramble No. 301. Tuesday 25/11/14.

Those Present – Sandyballs, Lafayette, Froggy, Matt, Curly Clarke, El Paco.

 Froggy's Exciting Secret Path Ramble.

Froggy had discovered a secret rambling path while out with his New Best Friend walking Dog Charlie. He wanted to show this to Lafayette who was somewhat sceptical that anyone would build a special path from the top of Southease along the mere quarter of a mile to Rodmell. However Froggy was insistent that this was so, and so the NERDS handed over the grave responsibility of being Routemaster to Froggipops once again.

This month poor Sandyballs had got over his terrible inability to drink due to a bad tooth, and instead had lost his voice to the extent that while attending a dinner party (how very Lewes) he had had to pass notes to his neighbours asking them to pass the fricassied peacock over or break open another jereboah of champagne. (By contrast Lafayette was reduced to texting his headphones-wearing daughter to pass him the salt from the other side of the breakfast table).

Anyway the ramble; ah yes, the ramble. Well the NERDS first of all sat around Lafayette's man-cave once again drinking some excellent Spanish brandy which S.B. had brought with him to lubricate his throat.

Laf. then whipped everybody out on to the train to Southease and then handed over the reins to Froggy.

It was a cold but bright day, however it had rained like hell recently and the going from Southease bridge along the river was very muddy. We talked about the sad passing of Hamish MacFindlay who, although not a NERD, really should have been one because of his well developed social skills and liking for a dram (in his alcoholic days). Poor Hamish, he was really too lazy to come rambling; in truth he was the NERD who never was. Matt reminded Sandyballs that he should be preparing his own deathbed repentance and everybody else began to hum “Look on the Bright Side of Life” and look forward to lunch.

On, on we soldiered along the mighty Ouse getting muddier and muddier.

Froggy as usual led from the back and could be heard discussing The Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling with Matt who had made it his personal Christmas charity this year. A helicopter from the Electricity Board swooped down to give us a closer look perhaps hoping Matt had some Gorgeous Lady Wrestlers about his person but he had obviously left them behind at his house furiously typing up his own will and deathbed repentance.

At Rodmell we turned left and went through some farmer's fields and then up a muddy track through the village towards The Abergavenny Arms. Inside we went through the usual procedure of finding a table, changing table, sitting down and changing table once again because Matt didn't like the colour of the tablecloth or something...... Still, we ended up in a very cosy situation right next to the roaring fire –

which we'd been trying to avoid all along. Paco was elected to be the burnt offering and everbody started quarrelling about who had the most scampis on their plate.

Sandyballs suddenly spotted a bunch of women who he recognised, and drew Lafayette's attention to Mel, who used to give Laf. a lift to Lewes Bonfire in the Old Days before the internet and mobile phones had been invented. “ I remember you,” said Lafayette, “Yes”, she replied, “I saw you the other week at Lewes Crown Court where I work; you were doing your bit for society by sending down some nasty piece of work for GBH.” “ Too right,” replied Lafayette. “ Now there aren't any Algerians to knock off I have to get my kicks somehow. By the way didn't you have a little daughter aged about six?” “ That'll be me.” growled a sullen young woman opposite, face glued to her mobile. “I'm twenty six now and just been done for GBH.” Lafayette gulped and hastily moved on. Don't time fly!

Post prandial dinks were mooted and Curly recommended the sambucca which he'd recently been drinking on one of his exotic holidays – and very nice it was too. Sandyballs still couldn't speak that well and Paco was getting quite crispy now so we finished our drinks and decided to explore Froggy's new, exciting path outside.

“Here's my new, secret, exciting path.” quoth Froggy, and  'twas true, some rambling organisation had gone to a great deal of trouble to cover the muddy bits with stones and put a signpost up saying “New Secret Exciting Path discovered by Froggy Reeve.”

at the beginning of the path. Lafayette forbore to mention that he'd actually come across this path the week before during a Darkside ramble up to Breaky Bottom, and the sign should have read “ Wonderful, Secret, Exciting Path actually introduced to Lafayette by Darkside Quazi, Ed.” but I expect the rambling organisation thought this might have been a tad too long to get all on one signpost. Besides which, Lafayette didn't want to ruin Froggy's surprise.

So back we went to Southease and waved off  Sandyballs who was going back in the opposite direction to another croaky dinner party in Lewes.

(How middle class). S.B. and Froggy were trying to out do each other to see who could take the best selfie across the railway track,

and Matt sighed and said that rambles these days were turning into NERDS- Lite events and that he was going home to seek solace from his Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling.

So, a good ramble from Froggy, even though his secret had been blown. It had been a pleasant day and we hope that Sandyballs gets his voice back soon. Next month is the Christmas ramble (and meal ) which S.B. and Laf. have yet to organise. It might take a few drinks in a few pubs for them to get round to making a final decision. Watch this space.

Lafayette.

Secondary Joining Instructions

Dear all,

Monday's ramble is being led and masterminded by Froggy (do we never learn). Just in case you haven't heard we will meet at Lafayette's place - Lavender Lodge -from about 10 AM. Expect chaos, mayhem and inordinate consumption of alcoholic beverages - and that is before we even start the ramble.

Sandyballs
(Too many chiefs and not enough Indians)

November Ramble Joining Instructions

Dear NERDS,
Froggy has an absolutely amazing idea for a ramble this month.
 So all meet at my house at 10 00-1030hrs for the odd drink, then we get the 11 32 train to Southease

where we start the ramble. Eventually we lunch at The Abergavenny Arms

- the details are known only to Froggy (who undoubtedly will make sure the Abergavenny is open for lunch that day).
Lafayette.

October 2014 Ramble

NERDS' Ramble No 299.  30th October 2014.

Those Present – Froggy, Sandyballs, Lafayette, Curly Clarke.

The Bad Luck Ramble.

The day started off optimistically with pleasant, sunny weather and not too cold. Luck of the NERDS, we thought since the days beforehand had been rather rainy and squally. However when we were all ranged on Lewes railway station preparing to go to Cooden Beach Sandyballs broke the news that for him it would be a temperance ramble; no drink whatsoever and none for the next few days too since he had a bad tooth and was on strong antibiotics. What rotten luck, we all thought. Fancy having to go on a ramble and not be able to drink, how will he cope, we all thought smugly. Thank God it's not one of us.

Putting aside such melancholy thoughts (at least, SB did) we all entrained for the seaside. On a day like this nothing could possibly go wrong – or could it? On the train Froggy showed us his new smart phone but admitted it was too high tech for him to be able to switch it on. S.B. ever the technical expert took it from him, got it going then found the battery was being rapidly drained by all the porn apps that Froggy had been conned into signing up to by the Orange boys from Lagos. “Just use it as a phone, like try talking to people with it instead of having it enhance your miserable sex life,” advised S.B. Froggy was aghast; he'd paid a lot of money to have teeny weeny pictures of naked black women jumping around flapping their tits at him. Maybe he ought to write to Lagos and ask for his money back, he thought.

Arriving

at the beach we went to The Cooden Beach Hotel where, since it was so pleasant and sunny, we thought we'd sit outside and enjoy the day with a few beers. It was really nice with the sea gently splashing next to us, the beer going down pleasantly and life seeming to favour us all. But the gods were looking down and smirking at each other. “We'll teach those smug NERDS a lesson,” they seemed to say. But more of this later.

 In these moments of euphoria Froggy was considered responsible enough to be promoted to the official position of NERDS Quazi, a position previously filled by Philby himself, and which consisted in being trusted to fetch and carry all the drinks to the rest of us all day, and to order and pay for all the meals for everybody. Needless to say Froggy was delighted with the honour of this new role, and stuttered “Thank you, thank you, Master,” to Lafayette who was the official Quazi Keeper.

Eventually Sandyballs managed to prise us out of our self-satisfied musings on life the universe and everything, and insisted we continue the ramble he had got written on the piece of paper he was waving around. Shame really, it was nice sitting there in the sun even though Lafayette had nearly broken his leg stepping into a full bowl of doggy drink water (what bad luck!).

The ramble took us over fields

and more fields. We went into a pleasant caravan park and got lost a few times,

then we found the right route through asking various people, and set off in the direction of The Star Inn where we knew they did good roasts and where we had been several times previously.

Only by now the gods were not just laughing, but rolling about and nudging each other in the ribs. A great disaster was about to fall on our heads. We arrived at the Star Inn, footsore and thirsty, not to mention starving, as we had tramped over quite a few shitty fields and got our feet very wet. Lafayette was first into the pub as he was the hungriest, but lo, the place did not seem to be full of people as it usually was, all eating, drinking and making a noise; there seemed to be a stark lack of atmosphere let alone customers. Lafayette was confronted by a bloke up a ladder painting who told him in no uncertain terms that the pub was closed and likely to remain so for two weeks at least due to refurbishments...............
Lafayette was crushed – no pub, no beer, no dinner, and stranded in the middle of the countryside. Someone must pay!

By this time Sandyballs had realised the iniquitous position he had put every one in through his mis-planning and total lack of preparation, and was haring off down the road before he could be strung up. The NERDS, however, were too dejected to wreak violence on him, all the sunny expectations of the morning had come crashing down, the gods up above were pissing themselves and we were all still ravenous. ( What terrible luck!)

Nothing else to do but to trudge onwards, hungry, thirsty and seething with resentment.

Sandyballs tried to make out it wasn't his fault. Hadn't we been to this pub lots of times? And hadn't it always  been open? Yes, but had he thought to check for today? No way, Jose, and as a consequence we were all stranded and desolate.

So on we went, we didn't know where, along the hard main road, our boots killing our feet, on, on past shitty bungalows and rubbishy, shingly roads. The magic of the seaside had all of a sudden disappeared; things all around looked tacky and tired, and our empty stomachs were banging round our knees in frustration.

Things were beginning to look really bad until Lafayette came across two jolly schoolgirls who looked as if they had had their dinner and were in a good mood. “ Excuse me ladies,” quoth Lafayette at his most desperate “But is there by any chance a pub round here where we can get food cos we is dying of hunger?”
“ Of course,” replied the schoolgirls. “ We know all the pubs round here; just go straight on into Pevensey about ten minutes up the road and there are pubs galore.” Lafayette was so grateful he would have kissed them all over had he not risked being thrown in jail because of their lowly age.

So encouraged by the idea that food might not be too far away the NERDS kept going along the road pausing only to buy Kit Kats at a camping shop and Magnums at another shop. Finally we arrived back in what looked like relative civilisation. Houses and shops and pubs that were open. We dived into The Bay Hotel which turned out to do food even at this late hour (not so unlucky after all), and we sat around a large round table

and watched Sandyballs drink diet coke for his manifold sins. He nearly switched to Harveys by mistake for one fleeting instant but the burden of guilt was too much and he relapsed into a sullen silence.

The food here was not up to much but at least it was food and we felt much better after it and a couple of pints. Thereafter we walked along the road to get the train back to Lewes from Pevensey. The station was one of those “in the middle of nowhere”

type statios where you can see the train coming from miles away. Unfortunately, yes, you've guessed it we missed the hourly train by about half a minute and had to wait around in the train shelter for the last one of the day.

( More bad luck; the gods were getting their revenge again).

Anyway, an interesting walk even though it was constantly dogged by mis-management and bad luck. At least the weather was OK and we had a nice train journey. Congratulations to Froggy on becoming NERDS Quazi; maybe, among his other duties, he should be required to ring up the pubs before each ramble to ensure they are open that day.

Next ramble will be No. 301 for reasons already disclosed. Don't get too confused; it's only a number of convenience.

Lafayette.

October Joining Instructions

This month we walk on THURSDAY 30th. Also this month we revisit an old favourite ramble - how many times have you heard that in the joining instructions? Oh, come on - it was a brand new ramble in September, wasn't it?

So we are going back to the Cooden beach/ Normans Bay area and lunch at The Star Inn - famous for its sumptuous roast carvery.

A shortish, flat ramble. What more could you want?

Seaford types should take the 09.55 from Seaford Central clutching a day return ticket to Cooden Beach. At Lewes cross to Platform 1 where I will meet you. The train leaves at 10.23 and there is a change at Hampden Park.

Looks like we will be a small select bunch this time. No Paco, who is slaving away at Gatwick.No Matt, who is doing something else. Can somebody contact Clarkie, as I don't have his email address? Also, what about Shirley? She of course will NOT be allowed to ramble!

See you on the day.

SandyBalls

September 2014 Ramble

NERDS' Ramble No. 298 - 26^th Sept. 2014.

Those Present – Lafayette, Froggy, Sandyballs, Matt, The Bish, Curly Clarke.

The Bramble Ramble.

First of all an important announcement to all NERDS. It will soon be (numerically speaking) the 300^th ramble. Since, however,  Lafayette failed to notice this in good time to enable everyone to organise the mass celebrations which are obviously appropriate for this huge event, the NERDS steering committee has made the following decision. October's and November's rambles will be respectively nos. 299 and 301. Ramble No. 300 will be held next May when everyone has had time to consider the gravity of the occasion and been able to agree on a venue. Sorry, B.T. Your suggestion of Marrakesh was shot down in flames. The other NERDS didn't like the idea of provoking ISIL by having a big piss-up in a muslim country however cheap the Easyjet tickets might be. (Nice try, though!)

Anyway, on to ramble 298. There was an exceptional attendance today with the Bish and Curly Clarke both gracing us with their presences. Paco was still making his ambitious climb up the Border Control career greasy pole at Gatwick. We hope to hear that he will soon be in over-all contol and ridding the country of absolutely every single illegal immigrant who ever dared show his filthy face..... rant, rant  don't get me started. Anyway Paco wasn't with us that day.

Sandyballs has got us a new route beginning at Cooksbridge,

but first we had to meet S.B. at Lewes to know where we were going.

Everybody put on baseball caps to greet (and confuse) him. The signs were ominous when we saw he'd got an ordnance survey map with him. How far were we going then? No matter, the weather, albeit overcast, was warm and the countryside round there was very pleasant and er.. pastoral so we set off optimistically.

First of all we got lost a bit in a field then got our bearings somewhere in the vicinity of  Hamsey Manor (Very poshe and just Lafayette's style).

Then the Bish started collecting conkers until we got to a field with a couple of rams in it who were obviously worried we had designs on their sheep until Froggy assured them in welsh that we hadn't.

Matt, meanwhile was dancing around announcing it was “ Touch a Tit “ Day and trying to tweak everyone's nipples. ( Ah, yes, we do have lots of fun on NERDS' rambles.) And after all this excitement we tried to cross a small bridge into another field and got hopelessly enmeshed in brambles (hence the name of the ramble this month)[ not to be confused with the 2009 July Bramble Ramble]. So many fantastic events we were nearly dying of excitement by this stage.

Shortly after we went into a bit of a wood in the vain hope we might just discover the missing girls which Boko Haram had abducted – but it appeared they hadn't yet got as far as East Sussex so no black mistresses for us that day. On, on to a remarkable church

(Our Lady of the Touchy Tits) which had a very interesting pool infront of it where Our Lady used to drown witches whenever she got pissed off at people trying to touch her tits. Matt thought he would chance his arm (or finger) at this since it was his special day (T.a.T. Day) but was met at the front door by our Lady herself who tried to lure him in with promises of coffee and sex, and with the obvious intention of converting him into a Protestant. Matt sensibly fled while the rest of the NERDS thought he ought to have stayed with the sex he knew (the right handed sort) rather than mix up his religious fantasies like this.Yes, Matt, I know, that your solicitor is currently looking for work.

We walked down the lane from the church and Lafayette had his photo taken in what looked like a large African hut

at the side of the road, (Lagos House). 'No Boko Haram girls in there,' he reported disappointedly; 'Our Lady up the road must have drowned them all as witches in a fit of pique.'

At this point Froggy and Curly were comparing their Burger House shirts which were identical except that Froggy was complaining that Curly had been using him as  a sartorial role model and was trying to dress exactly as he did (as if Curly gave a toss). Meanwhile Sandyballs took off his jacket and revealed his own Gay Cyclists tee shirt which had a much more elaborate pattern and put Froggy's dull black tee shirt quite to shame.

Eventually we reached Barkham Cross where the Royal Oak beckoned and so we all went in.

Not a bad pub where we all sat outside in the pleasant garden and stuffed ourselves. The food and drink were excellent – most of us had lamb and then pudding and then wine and then cheese boards and then more wine until we were replete.

Lafayette went inside to fill up the glasses and noticed a poor, old, scrawny cat drinking water out of a dog's bowl and bouncing off the furniture. In answer to his enquiry, the landlord said proudly, “ We're twinned with some pub up in Shropshire that had a strange dog who kept coming in and colliding with the furniture, so now we've got our own Gatto Ciego who does the same. He's quite sweet really but unfortunately the mice run rings round him. Lafayette was impressed.

After lunch we did some more exciting walking through pleasant fields etc and got really lost once again although S.B. saved us once again with his map.

Eventually we reached the Rainbow at Cooksbridge where we sat in their “Secret Garden”

and drank some more and where Froggy told us a tale about a man who had had a terrible accident and had then had experienced multiple orgasms all day long.

Most of the NERDS couldn't work out whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, but at least it got rid of the boring need to talk to women and buy them presents etc. so maybe it had its advantages .

Down the road we went to get the train back from Cooksbridge, but desastre!

The 16 20 failed to stop leaving us stranded at least two miles from Lewes!

So we just waited for the next train (there were two an hour) and chatted and sobered up a bit – but not too much 'cos we were enjoying ourselves.

Back at Lewes everyone except Matt  and The Bish piled into The Lansdowne Arms and Curly introduced us all to a new drink – Black sambuca – which he'd encountered during his many travels.

Lafayette took to this quite quickly but was a bit wary that its colour might unleash some sort of magic and give him multiple orgasms for ever, especially when the young, pretty barmaid looked at him cutely and asked him if he was pre-loading before a big night out. “No thanks,” said Lafayette, “ Too much effort at my age; I prefer playing bowls and polishing my airguns.” The barmaid had the grace to look disappointed.

So another good ramble. Something new and different for which thanks go to Sandyballs. Remember the juggling of the numbers with the next couple of rambles and after Christmas we shall probably go somewhere exciting for the 300^th, Incha' Allah, as they say in christian countries. Lafayette thought he'd get Matt to consult Our Lady of the Touchy Tits in Cooksbridge for inspiration. After all he's a good Catholic boy and she might well tell him where to go.

That's all for now.

Lafayette.

September Joining Instructions

 Fellow Nerds,

After missing a couple of rambles in the summer I am back in charge of routemastering duties. I recommence with a BRAND NEW RAMBLE (well, sort of). [Bramble?] Unusually we walk on FRIDAY 26th. Details as follows:

You will need a return ticket to Cooksbridge and take the 09.58 from Seaford. When you get to Lewes go IMMEDIATELY  to Platform 2 where I will meet you. We take the 10.19 to Cooksbridge. Lunch is at a MYSTERY DESTINATION.

What could possibly go wrong?

Sandyballs
(Sorry about all the CAPITAL letters again)

NERDS' Ramble No. 297 - 4^th August 2014.

Those Present – Froggy, Matt, Lafayette.

The Maize maze Ramble.

 Sandyballs had delegated this ramble to Lafayette because he was moving his daughter into a house nearer him ( spot the deliberate mistake here). Lafayette had delegated the business to Froggy since he'd done last month's and was so, so exhausted, so Froggy had come up with a wizzo route to Upper Dicker. Pity about the turn out, though. Everybody must have suffered sun stroke from last month or something. Oh well, three's a quorum – or a crowd depending on how you looked at it.

On the train to Lewes Matt happened to drop out that he'd been to Goodwood recently and made a five pound bet – on a horse.Wow!

Such is the high level of excitement in the everyday life of the NERDS. Did he win? We never found out; but just going there and smelling the money had been enough to turn Matt on. Hoping to get a drink out of him Froggy and Laf. manoeuvred him into Vic's on the platform for a cognac but none there was to be found. “No, cognac's off,” spat the ginger dwarf in response to our pleas. “ But we're all over eighteen and it's past ten o'clock,” wheedled Froggy.

To no avail. Heartless cow. “My good woman, don't you know who I am....” began Lafayette, before being shown the empty bottle. “Oh bugger,”he said, “S'pose we'll have to drink rum .”

And so we got just one drink in before the train came to take us to Berwick.

Froggy had taken an original idea from Lafayette, (go round the reservoir, eat at Pete's), looked at it, thought about it, lengthened it and drawn a map. So nothing (in theory) should go wrong. Again it was a nice day and we were in shorts (remember this fact; it becomes relevant later). So we set off towards the reservoir. Except where recently there had been a good view and a bit of a field there was now a pile of maize between us and it,

waving about threateningly like something out of one of those American horror films where children get dragged in and end up as screaming skeletons.

“This wasn't here when I drew the map,” wailed Froggy. “Maybe it's grown since then,” said Laf. “It's a very quick crop.” “Perhaps we might find a pot of gold in the middle, and all become rich,” suggested Matt. “Don't be daft,” retorted Lafayette. “ The only people who would think that are those who believe in leprech.....

anyway we're in England now.” So we carefully skirted the field of maize, went on a bit and found the reservoir in it's usual place.

Lafayette tried out his new binoculars on all the wildlife on the reservoir and found they seemed to get nearer.

Froggy was still having difficulty holding the map the right way up, and Matt was looking fearfully over his shoulder just in case we were being pursued by nasty leprech......whatever, those Irish thingies that turn you into a screaming skeleton. Or is that a banshee? Anyway, we got round the deadly reservoir without too much trouble and headed for Pete's Yew Tree for a pint.

This was nice. We sat in Pete's back garden in the sun and had two pints. Froggy wanted to go back and get a third (something to do with the somewhat mature barmaid having huge knockers which she plonked on the bar while grinning at you) Eventually we told him it was his ramble, he was routemaster and he ought to take his role more seriously – like get us to Upper Dicker in time for lunch.

Apparently that day there had been a minute's silence for World War One at about eleven o'clock. This was just when Froggy was in the middle of telling us about one of his expeditions with His New Best Friends (Derek or Curly Clarke). His eloquence only paused when a renegade wasp flew into his glass and threatened to sting his beer. Lafayette called for an immediate mandatory two minutes silence (might as well cash in) while we killed the wasp and remembered the other forty million dead wasps who had died nose-diving into people's beer over the years.

Anyway on we went and shortly after pitched up at The Plough at Upper Dicker.

Not a bad choice of pub. Bags of room to sit out in the garden;

lots of milfs and kids to oggle at (the milfs, not the kids, of course), pretty good food and lots of Harveys.

Matt made a friend of the landlord of The Plough by talking to him a lot but didn't manage to get a discount – or even a free pudding. Froggy talked about his New Best Friends and Lafayette became jealous because he hadn't got any New Best Friends.

Matt carried on saying he was on hobknobbing terms with Katie Price and Peter Andray at which point Lafayette completely stopped being jealous.

After lunch we wandered round Upper Dicker and photographed a cat lying on a gravestone in a cemetery (where else?).

So Lafayette tried to kidnap it and called it his New Best Friend but the others made him put it back (Bastards!). And so we began the return journey, and guess what, we got lost.

The weather was really pleasant. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting (or else on Facebook) but after a while Lafayette noticed all the pleasant green fields looked just like each other and Froggy was holding the map upside down again. Oh Dear!

The Routemaster sent us all over one large field to look for the appropriate exit but we just got loster. Round and round we went until Lafayette spied a farm worker who directed us through a shitty farm full of shitty cows. But at least it was in the generally right direction. Until.....

We came to another, what had once been a grassy field, and was now a maize ocean, nay a maize universe of impenetrably high crap. No good for NERDS this. We tried to penetrate (as they say) but got rebuffed. The only way was round the edges between the hedges and the maize. OK, it was do-able but at a cost. Remember we were all in shorts, yes we were, and the only viable way forward was through

a shit load of nettles.

Lafayette reckoned this was one of the most painful twenty minutes he had ever endured on a ramble. It surpassed even watching Philby trying to chat up every barmaid he would meet. (“And now I'm on step 3, kiss her all up her arm and talk to her in poetry while fluttering my big brown eyes” -Ugh!). Yes it was more painful even than this. Requiescat in Excelsis to Philby, and all that.

As we finally emerged somewhere near the Berwick Arms everybody's legs were inflamed and whizzing with nettle rashes zooming up and down. We soon got used to it. We were hard men, were we not NERDS? Yes, but it still hurt like hell! So we went to said pub and consoled ourselves in drink, and admired the barmaid, and didn't chat her up, and then returned to Lewes and thence homewards.

An interesting ramble and getting lost and bitten by nettles, leprechauns and banshees could not be attributed to Froggy. He'd taken us to a couple of good pubs and we'd had a good walk and not a bad meal. So it had been a success!

Hope all you lazy NERDS who didn't come are feeling guilty, and Lafayette hopes all your New Best Friends shun you too.

See you soon.

Lafayette.