June Ramble 2014

NERDS' Ramble No 295 - 11^th June 2014.

Those Present – Froggy, Sandyballs, Matt, Lafayette, (The Captain).

The “Never Done it This Way Round” Ramble.

It was a dark and stormy night. No, actually, it was a bright and sunny day and the NERDS had been summoned to Das Boot (pub in Seaford)

 to have a cup of tea (or whatever) before embarking on a Froggy – organised expedition over the hills and far away to take in Beachy Head and other places.

Spain and its excesses were just a distant memory by now. BT had returned to France pursued by the brujas espagnoles from a hill town; some of us had returned to “the desk” at Gatwick, and some were pursuing their languid playboy style existence which categorised not actually having to go to work. Froggy, however had got twitchy. He wanted, nay needed, to set a ramble which would shake everyone out of their mundane, everyday existence; which would set the world alight and make us all think what are we doing here? what actually is the point of our existence?

And so it was to be a ramble nobody had ever done before, ie – backwards. Let me explain: We had gone to Beachy Head before, one or two times before, in fact, but always from Birling Gap and, like, upwards. This time we were going to pretend we were going to Eastbourne then suddenly switch routes, as if on a whim, and creep up to Beachy Head from the sneaky north direction. Got it? How exciting, How interesting, -  as Matt might say. 

Anyway, at Das Boot we all congratulated Froggy on his recent conquering of Hadrian's Wall, admired his badge, and suppressed the ignoble thought that he had paid a surrogate to perform the task while he lounged at home watching the telly. Naah, Froggy wouldn't do that, especially after the massive build-up akin to that of the Football World Cup which we had been treated to in the weeks previously. No, he had done it all by himself and had got back alive but knackered, so he was a real man now who could organise things and prepare weirdo rambles.

We got the bus towards Eastbourne, sat at the back upstairs and discussed neo Romantic French poetry and the iniquities inherent in the present Cambodian judicial system. In the consequent discussion about people who had made a profound impression on mankind over the last hundred years or so, Sandyballs seemed to slightly confuse the relative contributions made by Errol Flynn and Daryl Flynn. That is until Lafayette saw the light and pronounced that Errol was a famous swordsman and Daryl was a misguided idealist who wished to right all wrongs through the barrel of a gun. (Actually we just slagged each other off something rotten and were especially cruel on those who were dead.)

We alighted from the bus and climbed the secret and unexpected way upwards over the main road, and over the glorious soaring Downs towards our goal.

The sun was out, it was nice and warm and we were all excited at this new and previously secret route.

We got to The Vintage Inn where lunch was to be took, and lo, quelle surprise, we ran into The Captain who had been lurking there waiting for someone to buy him a drink.

Captain hadn't been to Spain so was unaware of all the kerfuffle about Hadrian's Wall, so we filled him in and he congratulated Froggy and admired his new way of organising rambles.

The food, on paper looked good; it was all pies and chicken and steak and stuff, but expectations turned sour. Laf and Sandyballs gobbled their pies up real quick since they were hungry and wanted to get to their( and each other's) chips. Matt who had actually been chewing his food realised his pie not only contained tough meat but was pretty tasteless, and complained. The young concerned virgin who appeared at his imperious summons was most put out that their horrible food was “spoiling his day” so said  she would take off all her clothes, do a little dance and bring him a new pie to compensate him for his distress. Matt was not too impressed with the offer; he had been angling for a free dessert not another crap pie, but the NERDS enjoyed the dance nevertheless.

The Captain made one or two remarks in a derogatory way about poor Matt's attire. Apparently pedal pushers were not the latest “in” sort of trousers to be seen in when acting as a grumpy old git who needs all his food cut up beacause it's too tough. Matt told The Captain that his solicitor was currently looking for work so the former decided to clear off quick and not join us for the rest of the walk.

We sat outside in the sun and drank gin and tonics, and Matt redeemed himself by telling some young chap that he had had a body like his long before he became a moany old git.

The chap was delighted he had an admirer but didn't offer to take his clothes off and dance for us. (unlikely for NERDS to strike lucky twice in one day). So after  tanning ourselves a little more Froggy rousted us out and we proceeded into the offshore breeze, over the rolling hills towards Belle-Toute Lighthouse.

While the NERDS sat here and had an icecream Matt told us about his new cleaner Svetlana, who came in every day, took all her clothes off, danced around and did the cleaning too. He only had to pay her £500  for each cleaning session so considered it a bargain. “ Does she cut up all your bloody food for you too?” asked a peevish Lafayette pissed off that his cleaner just came and drank tea. “ No, but she's got language allowances in Polish, Latvian and Slovenian.” replied Matt, “That's why she's so expensive.” Lafayette started thinking the unthinkable and began to wonder if he could go back to work at Gatwick for a bit so that he could afford a high class, overqualified cleaner like this, but decided it would be cheaper to just pay for the tea bags and keep his own on the minimum wage.

The incredibly clever, backwards ramble continued. The NERDS headed to Birling Gap.

It was still sunny, grassy and breezy, and we were all enjoying the craic. Birling Gap hadn't quite fallen into the sea so we went and disported ourselves on the tourist platform and had our picture taken by American tourists. Then we went inside and were served coffee by a big girl called er... Svetlana who said she spoke a lot of different languages, was trying to get out of the rut of just serving coffee and fancied becoming a high class h..... whoops, cleaner. We noticed Matt was outside sunning himself dicreetly as she told us her story.

On on, after this from Crow Link and up, up the hill till eventually we descended to East Dean and sought refuge in the Tiger Inn. East Dean, as always, is a pretty little village with a pleasant sunny village green (when it's sunny, like today). We drank Legless Rambler (beer) and fantasised about how Sussex seemed to attract quite a lot of foreign girls into its service industry.

Sandyballs asked whether Errol Flynn had a younger sister called Rachel Flynn who read the weather on BBC, but nobody was sure so hoped she wasn't related to Hungerford instead.

So back to the road and on a bus (free, no comment elsewhere) back to Seaford and all points West. The weather had been very kind and Froggy is to be thanked for the innovative angle at which he thought up and executed this ramble. Hadrian's Wall

 must have brought out his latent organisational skills and fired his artistic imagination. It was certainly worth a Three not Fitted, bordering on a Two.

Lafayette.