August 2016 Joining Instructions Extra

Chers NERDS,

Message from Sandyballs whose IT is still up the spout:

We need to get the onward bus from Churchill Square promptly after our arrival at Starbucks. This means no titting about in the queue looking at foreign students and probably no time for coffee.

We must get off quickly once we all meet. No slacking!

See you all on the bus.



Lafayette.

August Ramble 2016 Joining Instructions

Dear NERDS,

Here are Sandyballs' joining instructions for next Friday 26th. Nota bene the name of the cafe to meet in. This means you, Froggy!

Lafayette.

P.S.I'm off next week to Jamaica to coach Usain Bolt in the art of how to loaf in retirement.

As you- although know we ramble this Friday on August 26th. Problem is I am having trouble with my Hotmail account. Since it changed itself to 'Outlook' and then changed the design of the website I can't do a thing with it - although it is allowing me (I hope!) to send individual recipients like yourself! Could you please send the joining instructions to the other NERDS?

Basically we are going to meet in Starbucks in Churchill Square at about 10.30 and then proceed by bus to another undisclosed destination. I have to think of one first!

Thanks. Hope you find the time amidst all the Olympic telly-bashing.

See you on Friday if not before.

The August 2016 Ramble date

So Lafayette has published the date of the next ramble as 26th August 2016. Is this to celebrate his ancestor’s introduction of the Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen. This declaration was of course introduced by General Lafayette

and signed on 26/8/1789

July's Second Ramble

NERDS' Ramble No. 320 - 27th July 2016.

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

Guests – Imogen, El Perro Negro Bandido.

Froggy's Summer Ramble.

Froggy had worked out a fantastic rural ramble going round the famous Berwick reservoir, having a pint chez Pete at the Yew Tree

and then proceeding over the fields to The Plough at Chalvington(?). Anyway these plans all came to nought because of crappy weather and Southern Rail depriving us of most of our trains. We had done the original Froggy ramble before and it was a good one, but it needed to be done on a nice sunny day and with a decent chance of getting to the starting line. No such luck that day.

And so Froggy had invented a ramble over the Downs towards Seaford from Newhaven, on a route we'd all never been on before, and so the NERDS were in a state of high excitement. But first we all had to meet. This was a bit complicated. Rendez-vous was in The Newhaven Coffee House.

Where the fuck this was even Lafayette didn't know until his wife pointed out it was at the top of the High Street next to the paper shop. Wow! You live and learn. Lafayette usually made his own coffee at home and was too mean to buy all that la-de-da shop stuff. Anyway, it would be an easy place for the Seaford contingent to get to ( lotsa buses available) but Sandballs had to get in from Lewes by some crappy little pensioners' bus which only ran about once every two weeks or so.

Suffice to say, meeting up all together at the same place at more or less the same time was completely chaotic.

People drifted in bit by bit, search parties had to be sent out for Sandyballs and the Bish, the Captain turned up by himself, and Lafayette got a phone call at home from Curly saying he ought to get his arse out of bed because today was ramble day. Woops! Better get down the coffee shop.

After a false start because Lafayette had forgotten his hat and the Brexit whip, everyone was more or less together.

The weather was drizzly and dull. First port of call was to head towards The Flying Fish for an early lunch. This involved some serious manoeuvring through Sainsbury's car park which was fairly dangerous and where Matt kept running around being pursued by mad drivers who he was convinced were all after his family jewels. We got into the Fish,

and as usual found it deserted apart from the barman. It's never really recovered from the glory days of being run by the Welsh woman with big tits and her husband, the French chef. First off we were told there was no Harvey's that day; he had a barrel but he wasn't opening it early just for us. Hmm....

So we drank some sort of Shepherd Neame and sat ourselves all round a table

at the back next to the kitchen. The Bish stripped off to reveal a teeshirt in dayglo green which made him stand out like a luminous Ninja Turtle. He confessed to having bought a pack of three of these while abroad on holiday. They were puke green, vile orange and white. We asked him why he hadn't just worn the white one to avoid offending our eyes. “ I can't tell the difference between them since I'm colour blind,” said the Bish. “ Actually, I only bought them because they were cheap, but they frighten away the seagulls

when I'm sunbathing in the back garden.”

The meal was OK; most people had pie and chips or fish and chips. The only snag here was lack of staff.

If you were getting your dinner you couldn't get another drink, and vice versa. The barman/waiter/frontman was doing all the work himself; he coped reasonably well and was adequately polite, but he needed a Polish barmaid as back-up and as a bit of glamorous furniture.

Suddenly outside there was a kerfuffle and Paco appeared (late) and said he'd had to feed Perro Negro Bandido and Imogen, his mom, before coming out.

Paco joined us for lunch; Imogen sat outside with Bandido who was so big, black and terrifying that he wasn't allowed inside. Lafayette went outside and suggested that Imogen got herself a job as a Polish barmaid to speed things up in the pub. “ No time,” she replied. “I've got to keep this ravening monster in check.” Lafayette thought this was rather a strange way to talk about Paco since he usually just drifted through life and wasn't particularly dangerous to anyone.

After lunch Froggy took us through Denton, then up a mega steep path to the top of the houses, then over the Downs towards where Bronco used to keep his horse Crunchy. It was a path not most of us had followed before, certainly Lafayette who lived only about a mile away had never explored this strange way. Matt was busy talking about how he had recently inspected Tubby's equipment and had not been impressed (what do they both get up to together?) The Captain hastened to clarify that Matt was only referring to his collection of VHS tapes (yeah, yeah) but Matt was so engrossed in his subject that he managed to fall down a hole and injure himself (slightly).

At this point we had arrived at Bishopstone, and Froggy laid before us the decisions we would have to make about what we could do next. Imogen took Bandido home so that he could savage some more sheep and gobble up a child or two

, and The Captain went back home to polish his equipment. The rest of us got on a bus into Seaford and ended up in The Old Boot where Sandyballs pronounced the Hammerpot beer to be crap (serves him right, he should have stuck to Harveys) and where Froggy gave us a lecture on British Heritage and where he was next going walking with Curly. Matt demanded that he produce lots of pictures especially of disordered bed sheets, but Froggy said he and Curly were sleeping in separate hammocks

so he couldn't oblige.

And so after a few more drinks the ramble ended. Despite the poor staffing arrangements we had had a good lunch and Froggy had taken us on ways and bye-ways we had never been before. An original ramble route is quite something these days; after nearly thirty years we've nearly worn East Sussex out. So thanks to Froggy and thanks to all our other guests. (bow, wow.) Next ramble Friday 26th August in Brighton.
Love.

Lafayette.