May's "El Paco's Birthday" Ramble

NERDS' Ramble No. 330. Thursday 11.5.17.

Those Present – Paco, Lafayette, Sandyballs, Froggy, Curly, The Bish, El Perro Negro Bandido, Bandido's mom, Imogen.

Paco's 70th Birthday Ramble.

1947 had been a famous year – much austerity, deep snow and the spawning of such notables as Lafayette and Curly. Today however was the 70th anniversary of the birth of El Paco whose father had painted a hideous mural of some town called Guernica

and had been forced therefore to flee persecution from Franco, and whose mother really wanted him to become a bullfighter

but settled for his ending up as an Immigration Officer and NERD. Such is Destiny.

Paco's “rambling” friends came to his house that day

bearing cards and gifts (mostly bottles.) They fought their way through the front door where lay at least a year's worth of old newspapers, unopened bills, empty pizza cartons, forgotten children etc etc. and arranged themselves around a sticky(ish) table in the kitchen. Paco's loving daughter, Lara, had left a cake and a note

reminding Paco it was his birthday. The kitchen party was joined by Kate, another loving daughter, and partner Kevin.

Since our host was obviously overcome by all the unusual attention, Lafayette opened the proceedings by formally notifying Paco it was his 70th birthday and by opening a bottle of prosecco. Realisation slowly seeped into Paco's brain as to why he had a house full of people, and he got into the swing of things by blowing out all his candles and doling out large chunks of cake.

The cake flowed and the prosecco was devoured.

Paco told a feminist joke about sumo wrestlers and hairy legs which nobody really understood and then someone elected Paco routemaster for the day and reminded him we were supposed to ramble somewhere. After another half hour or so nobody had still gone anywhere, the cake had worn off and people were making polite enquiries about the possibility of a lunch location.

The NERDS rolled out of Paco's house and first of all said goodbye to Curly who hadn't been too well, then formed up in the drive because Paco had a plan (!) He marched everybody off for a bit of a walk towards the main road, then as someone had felt a teeny weeny spot of rain, he was persuaded to divert into The White Lion Hotel for an aperitif. (Good plan!)

Two pints later we knew all about some horrible disease The Bish had got, all about Sandyballs' holiday in Rhodes and all about Lafayette's plan to take over The Universe. Paco,

meanwhile was dying for a cigar but had come out of the house without any money.

Lafayette decided he couldn't be bothered to take over The Universe by annexing Seaford that day, so when the “ramble” continued he crossed over the road and bought a bag of chips.

This turned out to be a sure fire way of becoming amazingly popular (Froggy to note.) Sandyballs screamed in like a ravenous seagull

and The Bish wasn't far behind. Lafayette's chips were plundered by all those whose breakfast of birthday cake had worn off hours ago. Meanwhile Paco was trying to work out how you got a cigar out of some NatWest machine that you had to put numbers in to make it work.

We headed south towards the seafront.

Things were relaxing, most of us were still hungry but the sun was shining vaguely and the sea looked nice.

All of a sudden a huge black monster bounded up, threw itself on top of Paco and began to lick his face. Lafayette was impressed. Even he hadn't had that reception when he'd been standing round with a bag of chips. Paco's new admirer was Bandido Perro Negro, of course, accompanied by Imogen,

Bandido's mom. We gathered that Paco did occasional Bandido Sitting duties – like taking him to school, going to the sweetshop, even taking him for a walk on occasions. Imogen was usually so exhausted by keeping Bandido from rampaging around her flat that she was glad of a bit of help.

“The Plan” now consisted of drifting along the seafront where we paid tribute to some beach hut

which might or might not have been where the late Hamish MacFinlay used to seduce all the local old ladies,

and of visiting a new seat at Splash Point

with a fishy theme

where Froggy took tons of photographs.

Somewhere at this point it was decided to go to the golf club for lunch. Sandyballs had decreed long ago that NERDS hate golfers despite the fact that we had an ace golfer in our midst who had frequently beaten “ Mean Boy” Dimaline at this extraordinarily weird pastime. The main argument for going to a golf club was that by now we were all starving and would even have eaten at Trump Tower had it appeared on Seaford Head. ( Lafayette has actually eaten at T.T.

and says the burgers are rather nice.)

We sat outside at the club where we had a pleasant view of the lynx (lynks? links?) and where we had the pleasure of watching various golfers lose their golf balls and wander around in circles making slashing gestures. The food here wasn't bad (it's difficult to really fuck up ham egg and chips) and the beer was quite acceptable and not over priced. Imogen ran in to place our orders - she was obviously starving too, and Bandido lay on the floor and looked adoringly at Paco when he wasn't gobbling up everybody's left over bits.
Thereafter Imogen and B. took us back into town by an interesting dog walker's route

where we met quite a few other dog walkers (surprise, surprise) and during which we saw parts of Seaford not previously known to Man (but obviously known to Woman.) This fascinating route

ended up opposite The Welly, but since all the outside seats were taken we carried on to The Old Boot.
Congrats to Paco for a very successful birthday breakfast and ramble. I think all the NERDS enjoyed the prosecco and the cake - so thanks to Lara for the latter. Thanks also to Imogen and Bandido for joining us and for finding a way home for us. All we gotta do now is pick a date and a birthday victim for the next ramble who can buy us all prosecco and bake cakes.

Bye for now.


Lafayette.

Lafayette's Muse