April's Ramble 2016

NERDS' Ramble No. 317 – 27th April 2016.

Those Present – Lafayette, Froggy, Curly, Paco, Matt, The Bish.

Those not Present – Sandyballs.

The Emergency Ramble.



Sandyballs had been faced with a crisis. He had intended to take everyone over to Ringmer to meet Bronco – to say hello, and to try out lunch in The Plough – but a timing malfunction had occurred. Although Sandyballs was never, ever going back to work at Gatwick (because he felt exploited; because he was older than everyone else; because the CIOs were all seventeen year old girlies who paid him no respect; because it meant sitting on the desk for about 8 hours etc. etc.) so, despite all this shit, SB felt obliged to attend a well paid re-training programme on the day of the ramble just in case anybody came crawling on their knees to him begging for his return. Nuff said........

And so Brave Lafayette had stepped into the breach to cover up for SB's sins. You see, normally Laf. would have been to see his dear, old, demented 115 year old grandmother

who he visited every day in her nursing home, to hold her hand and to make her a cup of tea. However because of Sandyballs' excessive love of money Laf had had to give up his pious good work to get out the rambling maps and to work out a new route, not to mention having to organise lunch somewhere at short notice.

Nevertheless a good number of NERDS rolled up at Lavender Lodge

on the due day, and Curly had even been thoughtful enough to provide a bottle of Cava to get everyone into the mood for er....

more drinking. Mrs Lafayette came and took photos of everyone while Matt regaled us with a tale of how he had once been held up at Sorrento airport where terrorists had spent hours torturing him by forcing him to eat all the McFlurry icecreams on the plane.

Eventually the ramble got under way. The NERDS went from chez Lafayette down towards Denton island,

and then through the little known, but interesting wild part of North Newhaven where the flora and fauna were different and where the fat, tattooed baby elephants pushing prams

, the usual inhabitants of the town, were not to be seen.

A little further on we passed close by Piddinghoe Sailing Club where Matt made a friend with a man who was titting about with his boat, and asked him to sail away with him to America. The man sensibly declined. We walked along the bank of The Mighty Ouse where the day was sunny but with a cold wind. We admired the retro, post renaissance, gothic architecture of The Incinerator which Lewes District Council was trying to turn into a listed building to attract that summer's influx of tourists away from the fleshpots of Brighton. Further along was the famous Newhaven Marina where all the local oligarchs moored their yachts, and yes, there in pride of place was the Admiral's huge, fabulous catamaran

which was rivalled only by the luxury vessel owned by B.T. in the South of France. Truly Newhaven was the jewel in the crown of the south coast of England where the rich gathered to see and be seen and to flaunt their conspicuous consumption!

But back to the poor NERDS. A quick pit stop was arranged at the Jolly Boatman

where Lafayette had spent many a happy hour before he had moved to Lavender Lodge over at the posh part of the town. As I may have mentioned previously the Jolly Boatman is a pleasant, spit and sawdust, roll-your-own type of pub

which serves a good pint. When we were comfortably ensconced in its circle of armchairs the conversation turned to food.

The Bish told us how he had always thought that Morrisson's sausages were a little bland in flavour until the previous week when they had suddenly got better. Matt mentioned that he had heard that Magnus Gilroy while working on the deli counter at Morrissons had inadvertantly chopped off one of his fingers and maybe that had something to do with the increase in quality.

Feeling hungry now, the NERDS headed out of the pub to make for the Flying Fish at Denton where lunch was to take place. The sky clouded over and it began to rain.

We were still half a mile from The Fish and Paco discovered he had no coat and was going to get wet, but fortunately we arrived before any great damage was done.

Recognising that the NERDS were special, the pub had reserved us a pleasant table in the corner so we could be apart from the local hoi poloi and so that we could conduct our exciting and dicreet conversations in privacy.

As it happened the pub's consideration of our special status was all for nought as we were the only customers that day. Froggy was late in joining the table and got into a strop because all the white chairs had been taken and so a mini game of musical chairs took place until he was satisfactorily seated.

The food was OK but took a long time in coming largely it seemed because one youth was running the bar and the kitchen at the same time.

Wednesdays must be a bit slow in Denton.

Finally the ramble broke up with Matt going to Sainsburys for his weekly shop – because it was classier than Morrissons, and The Bish going to Morrissons to get some more sausages. A suggestion that The NERDS carried on drinking at The Engineer was vetoed because nobody used the whip anymore and Bob was only accepting bitcoins these days because he'd gone over to doing business on the Dark Web.

So, that was the April ramble. Thanks to Curly for his generous gift of a bottle of cava to start it all off, and to Lafayette for taking over the reins of responsibility at short notice. We wish Sandyballs well in his attempt never to return to Gatwick to make even more money from a dying institution, and if all goes to plan we shall see Bronco next month – Inch' a' Allah.



Bye bye.


Lafayette.