The NERDS. Ramble 8/9/21.
Those Present – Sandyballs (Harry),
Lafayette (Charlie), Froggy (Phil), Paco, Matt,
and Sasha.
The Glamorous Waitress Ramble. It was a hot day; very, very hot. Probably the last hot day of Summer. The NERDS decided to celebrate by a) letting Froggy be Route Master and set the ramble and b) by going to The Steamworks in Seaford for a drink. The latter seemed to have become the cool (ha, ha) place for everyone to gather these days. Actually it was cool inside with a nice breeze to keep the old NERDS awake.
First Old NERD to turn up was Lafayette. His writing career had been in a bit of a decline since he had taken up bowling and hanging around school playgrounds instead. Well, you've got to get your writing inspiration from somewhere, haven't you?
Next along was Froggy, with a head full of bus and pub details and worried that all his carefully laid plans might go awry. Then was Sandyballs, glad to release (temporarily) the terrifying responsibility of entertaining the NERDS for a day.
Shortly after, and late as usual, rolled up Paco and his young ward, Sasha, who was spending some time under Paco's wing to finish her education.
Sasha, had already been to most of the posh finishing schools in Europe – Rodean, The Lycee Parisien, and The Hellfire Club New York where she had learned the subtle arts of waitressing and how to strangle a man with one finger like James Bond does. Anyway she was with us during her last few days in the UK and specifically to upset the gender balance of The NERDS' Male Old Farts' Club.
Sooooo......the company all had a drink and then legged it for the bus stop to go to Birling Gap where Froggy would start his ramble.
It was nice and breezy on top of the hill just outside Eastbourne.
Froggy led us off in completely the opposite direction from that expected by Lafayette.
But, what the hell... he was in charge that day. Have a bit of faith. Froggy dashed off ahead leaving Lafayette and Sasha to talk about Denmark ( where Sasha comes from).
Lafayette wanted to know if all the people in Denmark were female, blonde and lived under bridges like on the telly.
Sasha said that was all nonsense since some of them were actually brunette and got their looks from having mated with certain hairy trolls
from Norway ( but not those in her family).
Lafayette was also interested in Sasha's plans for a future career and said he hoped she wasn't going to turn out like her father who had been found on a French beach raving drunk on one occasion, when he had been thrown in jail by the French police, and had had to be rescued by Paco and Lafayette from terrible disgrace and shame.
Sasha replied that she was not like this, she was a nice girl who wanted only to work for the Danish Secret Service
in exotic places such as Istanbul, Bangkok and Bali while maintaining her cover as a cocktail waitress (albeit with special, deadly skills). Lafayette was impressed, although he did reflect that her father had seemed to have had all the necessary failings which might have led him into becoming a young NERD one day.
Anyway, back to the ramble. Froggy was getting further and further ahead
so that eventually he disappeared altogether and was next seen emerging from a bush having managed to get himself all covered in prickles in some very sensitive places. No explanation was given; we thought he might have been lured away by fairies or trolls and then punished for telling them all about his amazing literary career and how many Booker prizes he had won.
However, Froggy did finally lead us down, down a steep, steep hill where everyone nearly broke their delicate ankles and arrived at the bottom still thankful to be alive and in one piece. Froggy led us to The Pilot, a pub where Matt was allegedly waiting for us in the garden.
Since Matt had never met Sasha, it was decided to test her new career cover story and find out if she made a convincing cocktail waitress. Sasha went into a phone box, put on her skimpy dress and high heels then grabbed a menu and approached Matt.
He had been feeling grumpy because The Pilot had seemed quite expensive and nobody was paying him any special attention. “Bonjour, Monsieur,” said Sasha (in Danish) “Would Monsieur like anything off the special menu today? We have lots of special dishes which are reserved only for the most handsome of our customers.” “ Get away from me, young woman” growled the grumpy Matt. “ In my day women waited until they were spoken to before daring to address their elders and betters, and why are you carrying a Beretta 9mm in your suspender belt?” “ That's just in case you get frisky with me,” said Sasha. “Fat chance of that,” said Matt. “All I want is a nice pudding that I can complain about and get for free.”
At this point Sasha revealed herself. (No, not like that, she told Matt she was vaguely related to Don Paco and wanted everyone to believe she was like Wonder Woman only better dressed. Matt admitted he had been totally taken in and had been so impressed he hoped she would become a full member of The NERDS and would come on all future rambles. Sasha said that sadly she had to slip out of England on Saturday as she had some secret work to do for her own country. And so the mystery was sort of solved and we all began to eat and drink.
The food and drink at The Pilot was rather good. Everyone had the
special pudding which was some sort of red cheesecake with icecream. If you ate enough it apparently made you very handsome or else made you sick. Lafayette finished off what the rest of the NERDS had left but failed to become anything like handsome although he did feel a bit sick.
Shortly after this Matt had become so enamoured of Sasha and her exotic lifestyle that he decided he could not live without her,
so he kidnapped her and took her back home with him, hoping that she would change him from his austere lifestyle of constantly hoovering his pristine home and watching dodgy television programmes. He wanted to stop counting all his money every night and spend it on his glamorous new project in the hope that she would serve him ever more special dishes and make him more youthful and handsome than ever. Well, there's one born every minute. Let's hope Sasha can escape to the exotic East before it's too late.
Next thrilling episode to be written when Sasha returns from her travels abroad.
By the way the rest of the ramble was a bit boring in comparison to what had gone before. Sandyballs, Froggy, Paco and Lafayette went for a long walk along Eastbourne seafront and popped into The Stage Door for a last drink.
Many thanks to Froggy for the last drink and for quite an interesting ramble.
Many thanks also to Wonder Woman for reviving Lafayette's literary skills, but don't expect a write-up after every ramble now; it's only cos this was a special ramble that you got one.
Bye now,
Lafayette.
