NERDS' Ramble No.315. Wed. 17th Feb. 2016.
Those Present – Lafayette, Froggy, Sandyballs, Matt,, The Bish.
Cury Clarke.
Back To Pete's.
Sandyballs needed inspiration
for a route this month. He was already looking ahead to the St Patrick's Day Ramble
, quickly followed by the “I'm here as a special Guest,” ramble which is when B.T. comes over. So what to do? Where to go? No problem we'll just recycle an old favourite and go round the reservoir to Pete's place (The Yew Tree) in Arlington.
Paco never turned up, of course, (probably hibernating)
but Matt rolled up in his new hat looking like a polish railway worker
. Very chic.Why couldn't he be prettier and look like a polish barmaid ?shucks! Anyway off we went to see the actual real, genuine, lovely blonde polish barmaid in the Runaway cafe on Lewes
station. Svetlana, for this was her name, always sighed sensuously when Lafayette would order a mocha coffee and asked her to put a brandy in it. Clearly she's a girl more used to lying naked, sipping vodka
enveloped in a bearskin on the steppes of central Europe – but I digress..........
The NERDS got the train to Berwick, closely following some nice girlie wearing stockings and a thigh tattoo (just like your mom did after the war) and sat down to work out a plan of action. When this came to nought they piled off the train with the Bish twisting his knee in this delicate operation, and went straight into The Berwick Inn
to see which Milf had taken over the place that month. It's an amazing fact that we come in here about every six months or so and there is always someone new in charge. Could be that they don't light the fire early enough, or the beer's off or there are too many frogs
in the garden, or the aliens have just put a curse on the place, but whatever it is there's never any other customers there but happily there's always a new milfy girlie there.
This one was rather unusual. A good six footer, she thrust our pints at us in a thrusty sort of way and Froggy immediately fell in love. The fire wasn't lit, and Lafayette didn't have Paco with him to get it going (see the Christmas Ramble). The place was cold and nipples
were beginning to harden so we drank up and resolved to face the outside world of freezing winds and boggy fields.
Sandyballs had warned us that there would be mud
, and, yes, there was lots of it. Sucky, sloppy, make sure you don't fall down in it type mud. We waded on. The Bish suffered; his poorly knee was clearly playing him up. We climbed a dangerous hill up to where you could see the reservoir and found ourselves confronted by an extremely muddy field containing a vast herd of excitable, wild horses
.What were we to do ? There was no going round them since the way forward was limited. So Lafayette put his faith in his own natural animal magnetism and climbed over the fence prepared to die for the sake of his companions. At this point the Bish, said he'd forgotten that Wednesday was when he usually washed his hair and turned round to limp back home.(No comment.)
Lafayette boldly strode forward, slosh, slosh, slosh. The wild horses rode towards him - thunder, thunder, thunder. A bloody tragedy looked inevitable
; the rest of the NERDS looked on anxiously wondering how they would break the news of Lafayette's heroic death to his poor weeping wife and children. But then, with a masterful gesture, Lafayette raised his hand and the charging hordes stopped. They weakened, and approached him submissively seeking a gift of apples or the like
. Lafayette smiled, he knew he had not been in danger, for who would dare to attack a member of The Holy NERDS!
Lafayette led his troops across the muddy field pausing only to deride the faithless cowardice of the Bish who by now was undoubtedly enjoying a sick day away from his rambling duties. The reservoir was approached and we all sang “Hey Delilah”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQIK3Te9Coo
Eventually we arrived at B.T. Bridge where our French member used to teeter along the parapet in the latter stages of rambles when he had enjoyed “ a good lunch.” Fortunately nobody was daft enough to try this today
, so we all crossed a stream,
through another field of miserable looking sheep, and we were in the lane that led to Pete's Pub.
The Yew Tree is a warm, cosy pub where rich pensioners with nothing else to do arrive in their hordes at about lunch time. The car park is always packed - not surprising since you're in the middle of the country – so the NERDS sat on the step and politely removed their boots
. Lafayette had thought ahead and put on his indoor sandels. Matt said he preferred to get his socks wet with urine when he went to the bog! Takes all sorts! Inside we all decided to have a roast, and knowing Pete's habit of giving you tons and tons of veg, this turned out to be a good decision. Lafayette had his usual Belgian chocolate icecream with a (small) bottle of Baileys, and resisted Sandyball's suggestion to repeat the exercise like he did once Christmas (Laf. likes icecream).
Peter himself emerged from the hinterland
and engaged us in conversation. He makes a very good host and almost remembers which one is Sandyballs and which one is Laf. After a general moan about the cost of expensive children and the profligacy of wives, Peter bought everyone a drink
and reminisced about the mad foreign one amongst us who used to sing and play the piano (badly). So we told him that Philby was dead and that the world was now a quieter place, and he was a little bit sad. We decided to arrange the second March ramble to come back to display B.T. to Peter to see if he remembered him, but in reality it was just cos we'd had such a good meal there we all wanted to go back. So now you know where you're going in March, Brian.
Since we'd all got fed and were mellow nobody wanted to brave the crappy fields or the ravaging Horses of the Apocolypse again, so we made our way back along the road. It was a lot safer and a lot less muddy. Of course we ended up in the Berwick Inn again and at least there was a fire to sit by. Matt produced some old photos of the NERDS taken about 1988
, and we all thought how handsome we looked in those days – but how much richer we were these days. Pity you can’t buy back youth with riches otherwise we'd all be broke.
And so a pleasant ramble and a good dinner which the Bish missed because of his cowardice and his poorly knee. Let's hope he gets better soon. Next ramble is St Paddy's when we welcome Dio back. He's not very Irish but he likes to go round and drink Guinness like in New York.
Nierdos Para Siempre.
Lafayette.
