Spain in May 2014

NERDS' Ramble No. 294. 6^th - 9^th May 2014.

Those Present – Lafayette, Froggy, Sandyballs, Paco and BT.

The Second NERDS' Spanish Expedition.

Paco's lovely sister, Wendy, had given the NERDS the freedom of her house at Villa Rosa once again (Hooray for Aunty Wendy!) so that they could spend a few days sharpening up their Spanish and honing their cooking skills and generally relaxing after all the hardships of being forced into retirement. You see, being away from work was beginning to get boring for the NERDS.

Lafayette had shot nearly all the wild boar in Sussex and had had to turn to “Old Man” bowls simply to get out of the house. Froggy had already penned two rock operas which had been produced to great acclamation on the London stage and made him very famous. Paco had actually managed to get out of bed on perhaps three occasions but was getting bored with the self discipline this demanded; and Sandyballs was fed up with running round after grandchildren and was considering returning to Terminal 3 to pursue a career sweeping out the bogs.

Anyway Lafayette turned up at Gatwick with something he was very proud of. He had just bought a new turquoise blue case to put all his thingummyjigs in but sadly got a frosty reception from the others. “I'm going nowhere near you with that horrible gay case.” spat Sandy balls who was lugging a butch “Bear Grylls” type piece of equipment. “Well, too bad,” lisped Lafayette. “It's my gay case and I shall probably even take it through Brighton next year on the Gay Suitcase March. “ So If you don't like it I'll shove it up your arse and you can come too.”

Things settled down however after everyone had had a couple of drinks at the South Terminal, got lost wandering round looking for each other and taken on board either a slap up english breakfast ( S.B. And Paco) or a couple of manky sanwiches (Laf and Froggo.) Pity that the self-satisfied couple with the nice breakfast had to bolt theirs down because the flight was being called – my, how the other two larffed, Ho, ho, ho.

So, in the plane, in the air, down on the ground, arrive in Valencia.

Now to the lady at car hire. Last year we got a mammoth people carrying station wagon, bus type thingy, but Paco had asked for a smaller vehicle and Lafayette was worried that whatever we got wouldn't be big enough to accommodate four fat bums and one gay case. Not to worry; the lady was really nice (in spanish), charged us the earth and gave us a smart red Picasso (just like the ones they ride round the bullrings to aggravate the bulls).

 Since it was actually Ferrari red (this year's new colour) Paco drove it at an average speed of 150 kph to give the lie to the rumour that he was really only a lazy git who couldn't get out of bed.

Arrival chez Wendy. Better be circumspect. Wendy herself was arriving the following week so no sense in having too many parties and tearing the place apart. Now we went through the usual fascinating procedure of finding the right keys and unlocking every thing in the correct order so that the Albanian bandits who were hiding around every corner would get bored and go and ransack someone else's house. Leave them an inch, see, and they're zipping indoors through your legs and emptying the place before you've even had a chance to get the key out of the lock!

Everybody now in; a quick look round – no musical instruments around – Good! Now Froggy won't be tempted to er.... be creative.

Quick, isolate the snorers and put Laf and S.B. in the same room so that they can be homo erotic like recently in the New Forest. Now down to El Garrofer to see what this year's bunch of East European girlies look like.

El Garrofer hadn't changed much; basic, scuzzy, chip smells, mangy feral cats round your feet etc, but a pleasant canopy of chestnut tree leaves over our heads when we sat down at our table and, of course, the very real pleasure of our first omelette and chips served by the enchanting Alina from somewhere a bit further East of here.

Wonder where B.T. is? He wasn't there when we arrived at the house but I expect he knows where he'll find us.

Sure enough, we were half way through our second drink when BT screeched to a halt brandishing a large bottle of gin and a large bottle of calvados since he'd been through Andorra on his way here and thought his companions might be a bit thirsty. Hooray! So we all had another drink and BT and SB had a little rant together about lost inheritances and how old folk were mean and smelt of wee.

The afternoon was going well; we hadn't even touched BT's bottles yet, the Garrofer wine was flowing and it was then that SB and Paco decided to get jobs manning Hadrian's Wall ( a current favourite topic of conversation for Froggy ) when devolution took place ( fat chance); and BT came up with the idea of a joint NERDS credit card ( but taken care of by him) to avoid the annoying necessity of calling for a new wip every five minutes. (It was to be entitled Los NIERDOS Abuja). Luckily we were all just still sober enough to reject this idea on the grounds that somebody might possibly lose it if they were sitting around having a crap somewhere – especially if they kept it with their mobile phone. Can't remember what happened after that; expect we all went back chez Wendy, stopped drinking, cleaned our teeth, said our prayers and went to bed.

Day 2 – A musical interlude and other adventures.

Next morning Lafayette descended, and breathing in the atmosphere and seeing the recumbent form of Paco surrounded by a plethora of fag butts gave him a new name. Now known as El Fago, the Spanish one was obviously enjoying his holiday and destroying the precarious health of the others with his poisonous habit. Not to worry; worse things were to happen. Froggy got up still pissed and began to loudly sing every song he had ever heard – just to make sure everyone else was getting up and was appreciating his musical talent.

Now that we were all awake a plan was needed. First of all stuff a mattress down Froggy's throat then have breakfast. BT then became all artistic and started to dance around papping everyone with his camera. Why? We look the same as last year only slightly more debauched. But BT wanted to get some ammunition for embroidering the write-up so we all sat around pretending we were Kate Middleton and looked beautiful.

Finally some pushy person decided we needed to go for a walk (!!!) so we sloped off down the road towards the sea and started to pick our way along the shore.

It's a sod how the sand keeps getting into your sandals n'est-ce pas? Maybe that's why they're called sandals after all.

Froggy resumed his loud and tuneless repertoire of obscure pop songs; the Spanish all seemed to have magically disappeared in fright. The NERDS' patience broke; the holiday was becoming just a complete cacaphony of Froggy orientated self indulgence (and it was constantly very, very loud). Someone threatened to pitch Froggy over a cliff on to the nasty sharp rocks below; two others started fingering their Laguiole knives and measuring up the throat from which this fucking row was emanating. Froggy finally realised he was in imminent danger of being considered ever so slightly unpopular so said he would consider imposing a sponsored silence on himself for about ten minutes. Oh, we were so grateful. We licked his feet and hugged his knees in ecstasy and promised to cook his dinner for him that night. Froggy just looked scornful and went into a mong- mode sulk for a while.

Our travels had brought us back on to the main road where we suddenly espied a cafe where we could stop and get over the awful pain caused by not hearing Froggy sing. The cafe was called Rincon de Pedro and Pedro was indulging in the monthly treat of having his septic tank cleaned out. It was absolute heaven.... there was a huge yellow tanker parked opposite us making a stink like a Pakistani shithouse and a noise like about a thousand motorbikes all being revved at once. But.... we at least couldn't hear Froggy singing so we thought we'd stay here for a while despite the smell.

Lafayette was starting to have mental problems. It might have been being caused by the constant background noise from a variety of sources or else he was being haunted. Every so often he would count the NERDS, wherever they were, and feel that there was one too few. Where was the other one? Had he just gone off to get another round? No, we were still the same number (5) as when we had started off. Back in the Wendy House Lafayette would look around and feel that one of the NERDS was missing. Had he just gone into the kitchen or up to the bog? But no, everyone was there, it was a full count; yet even so Laf was sure someone was lurking at the fringe of wherever we were but couldn't quite make his presence known. I leave you, dear readers, to draw your own conclusions about this. Laf just had another drink and jammed his fingers even more tightly into his ears. Nevertheless the impression continued.......

That day we lunched at the Casa La Mera in town. There were no waitresses from Ukraine like in the restaurant last year – probably all gone back to fight the Russians – but the Spanish bloke gave good (waiter) service and we had an excellent paella while listening to the splash, splash, splash of the large fountain next to our table.

Froggy said he was dying of happiness at this lovely holiday, Paco tried to see how many fags he could get through and Lafayette kept twitching and looking over his shoulder.

After this long, long lunch which, due to form, cost slightly more than bugger all and produced some excellent spanish red wine, we somehow got five of us (who knows, it might have been six) into a saloon taxi and were transported back to El Garrofer.

There we fed the cats again and Sandyballs persisted in thinking the hole in the centre of the table was for bouncing glasses through straight on to the concrete floor. (Actually it was for putting the pole of a sunshade through but SB was not convinced and continued to practise his strange new hobby.) Froggy reckoned if you closed your eyes when he was singing you'd think it was Eric Clapton sitting (and singing) right next to you. We all wearily agreed that this was dead right. Thereafter, as before, the NERDS stopped drinking, went home, brushed their teeth and went quietly to bed. It had been a loud, strange, spooky sort of day.

Day 3 – Barbecue Day!

Put a number of men on a desert island like Bear Grylls has recently done for a television programme, and they will survive even though it takes them up to eight hours to light a fire. Put five (or six) NERDS in a Spanish villa and mention “barbecue” and they all start getting organised to go down to the supermarket. Bugger survival tactics; if there's a Lidl nearby we can do whatever it takes. Lafayette realised it needed coordination for this to succeed, namely everyone had to get up first. So he allotted tasks. BT would drive – since he had a car; Laf would make a list of stuff , like meat, more meat , a bit more meat oh and fire stuff like er.. fuel and perhaps matches; oh and buns to put the meat in. What else could you need? Perhaps a few cans of beer. No problem, sports. So off we went.

Lafayette was disturbed to note that BT had a hanging quazi bell in his car that jingled every time he went round a corner and so each time this happened he was sure he felt a cold hand placed on his shoulder.

 Probably just caused by nerves at BT's driving, nothing to worry about. In the supermarket Froggy was given the task of steering the trolley, Laf had the list and the others went forth and scrounged. Some funny things turned up, like Sandyballs wanted to buy all the expensive bike equipment, Paco wanted boxes of cigars and Froggy wanted rock music CDs. Laf. had to be very strict to keep everyone focused but eventually the job was done and we all repaired down the Garrofer again for an aperitif.

Anita was there; we noticed she was expecting so all looked guiltily at one another. She seemed to think it was maybe her husband's fault but whoever had had the pleasure had made her into the best pregnant Milf we had seen for ages. A clumsy one, though, since she insisted on chucking beer all over our table and then bending over it to clear up thus causing a few hearts to go flutter, not to mention...oh, never mind.

Back at the ranch it was very hot and sunny so we all picknicked on picknick stuff, drank ourselves stupid and had a little snooze. All too full for a barbecue now, let's try and get the telly working.

Bear Grylls would have been proud of us, it only took about four hours, so then we watched David Attenborough walking round somewhere foreign talking to monkeys after which we had another little snooze.

After snooze number 2 Sandyballs wanted to exercise his barbecue skills so we all decided we were a bit hungry after all and started the burning process.

This actually went quite well (especially after Paco had increased the amount of charcoal) although we seemed to be eating a lot of wild boar shit sausages (at least that's what they looked like) and incinerated crispy things which SB told us were chicken feet. This burst of action triggered something in SB's insides ( maybe it was a miracle, maybe his Catholic faith had returned) but despite not having defecated for about three days SB suddenly found he could deliver of himself. What news! Ring the bells! Show the white smoke! This was the high light of the afternoon so you can tell how mundane things had got by this stage.

Day 4 – A Little Trip to the Mountains.

Todays' idea was to go up to the mountains and use some petrol in the hire car. Because he was such a hero Froggy selflessly said he would stay behind and do all the housework and be loud and sing songs to annoy the neighbours (instead.) Such self sacrifice! It meant we could have a nice quiet trip with more leg room for those remaining, and be able to discuss matters of import such as the vexed question of Britain's possible exit from the European Union or the problems concerning the drains in Indonesia.

We headed towards Morella an hour's drive away.

Lafayette sat in the front to accompany Paco and make sure he stayed awake. This he accomplished by describing in loud detail every woman he had ever slept with and by howling boring pop songs in his ear. Paco was somewhat startled but at least he remained awake.

Morella was still in the same place ie. up a mountain and pretty cold.

One of the first visits was to walk past Prat's Bar (sic) where on a previous occasion BT had mistaken a pig sandwich for something edible and had started to sprout trotters and a curly tail.

Outside we crossed the road and entered a Bruja shop (witchcraft).

It was full of witches on broomsticks hanging from the ceiling, funny books containing incantations, strange scripts hanging off the wall, funny smells and a general atmosphere of enchantment.

We all went in except BT who suddenly found he was restrained by an invisible barrier. No matter how much he tried he was unable to enter the shop. Puzzled by this, a flash of memory took him back to the previous year when he had wantonly kicked aside some ugly old beggar woman outside Prat's bar who had importuned him for alms. “ Get out of my way, old woman.” quothed BT. “ Don't you recognise a Public School boy when you see one? We don't give anything to beggars, we send them back where they came from. Begone, foul hag.” The mendicant had recoiled, then had spoken to BT in a silky voice.” Why don't you go into that nice bar, my lovely boy, and have a bacon sandwich; it will undoubtedly do you good.” ( cackle, cackle.) The rest was history.

Sandyballs was feeling a bit sick (What is it about Morella?) so we stopped at a pavement cafe for a cup of coffee. Ah, this was better; proper coffee, no old hag beggars, and a view up and down the interesting high street. Just then a vision of loveliness appeared.

It was a chica floating down the street in Daz-white tight trousers,

white high heels and a figure of such voluptuous proportions that one or two of us spilled our coffee.

“ Don't look. Avert your eyes!” screamed Lafayette who had been to some strange places in his time. “ It's a witch; If you look at her you will undoubtedly turn to stone!” Paco became immediately worried and his hand crept towards his groin. “ I think I've started already.” he wailed.

Fortunately, however, the fausse chica passed on by and the atmosphere of heavy sensuality gradually dispersed.

What a narrow escape. Our thoughts then turned to Froggy languishing by himself in Villa Rosa with no-one to listen to him, and prey to being attacked by long range witches from Morella.

What if they got to him before our return? What if they turned him into a mong that was dumb but just bursting to express himself like on the beach a few days ago? Better get him some sort of charm that he could wear round his neck to ward off evil chicas/witches. Our quest led us to an anti-bruja shop run by a normal catalan woman. “Have you got anything to ward off evil influences, especially those caused by too much drinking and self-obsession?” asked Lafayette. “I've got just the thing.” said the anti-bruja pulling out a frog on a stick from her warm bosom.

“This will stop anyone from being the object of evil thoughts, evil influences and it's rumoured that it even cures snoring.” “We'll take it!” said Laf. and made sure she wrapped it up carefully to keep its magic powers fresh.

After a pleasant lunch at Vinatea restaurant

where we met Tania and her identical non-sister, we went to look over the countryside from the bella vista part of the town.

We were high up in the sun and watching the swifts chase each other around. This was the spot where we had seen the younger version of Philby the previous year – but he had not returned.

BT wanted to visit Morella Castle,

which involved a lot of climbing in the hot sun. However it was worth it as the views were magnificent and the interior of the monastery was vast, echoing, and pleasantly cool after the heat outside.

Paco was so impressed with all this pre- Franco history that he fell over his own feet and injured his hand. Lafayette put it down to the evil machinations of the local brujas, but Sandyballs reckoned Paco was just being a clumsy sod. (Probably a combination of the two). Lafayette drove back as Paco was now an official invalid and the NERDS ended up at the Garrofer for gin and tonics. Froggy was ecstatic to be given his frog anti- witch charm bracelet-thing-on-a-stick and said he had never once been car sick all the time we'd been away (in the car). Funny that.

Final Day – The NERDS split Up.

Last day today, Sandyballs and Paco flying home from Valencia; BT taking the other two chez lui for a week in France. Despite being an official invalid Paco struggled manfully to deal with the rancid bed linen and the rest of us tidied up so that his sister wouldn't think we had been complete hooligans. Froggy spent the morning playing with his new toy and whispering pop songs to it. Lafayette spent a lot of time twitching, turning round suddenly and looking in odd corners for the presence he still felt around somewhere. Should have got an anti-paranoia charm bracelet doodah from the nice wise woman in Morella. Sandyballs spent his final hours trying to beat his record of having only one dump in a week; but we never got told the result of this experiment.

And so we parted. As an example of male bonding it had gone OK. No-one had got killed and only minor injuries had been sustained. Nobody had lost their phone or anything more valuable

this time and the consensus was that we were all tired and wanted to go to bed and detox. Many thanks go to Wendy and Paco for their lending of the facilities and organisational skills respectively. The rest of the NERDS are to be praised for their individual life skills and other talents. (You all know which ones) so let's be glad we all survived again, and meet up once more in June. Lafayette is still wondering who the sixth NERD is/was. Maybe he is yet to be born - eee, spooky.

Lafayette.