Lafayette's regrets

Dear NERDS,

I shall not be joining you on the ramble tomorrow on account of what I have a poorly knee. ( 'Tis those bastard Darksiders setting rambles down wonky hills in Surrey).

However.....I shall be joining you for lunch because I am able to stagger from railway station to railway station. Sandyballs has kindly said he will do the write-up this month so make sure there is lots of stupid, loud unseemly behaviour on the walk.

Hasta manana.



Lafayette.

Froggy's equipment failure?

Thanks to Harry for the joining instructions! I'm looking forward to the climb already!

Don't forget, everyone, that the RT should be to Glynde and not Lewes. It is the same price (£3.40) with a senior rail card, but if you forget and have to get a single back to Lewes from Glynde (as BT notably did once), you would be asked for another £3.40 (co-incidentally)!

My broken camera still works at taking pictures through the viewfinder. I just won't know when the battery runs out or be able to keep tabs on any other function, so if I haven't got my new one by Wednesday, then it will have to do?

Froggy x

Joining Instructions for April's Ramble

Dear All,

This month's meet is on Wednesday 29th. As previously planned, we are taking the well-trodden path to The Trevor Arms in Glynde. If you remember we intended to do this earlier this year but it was cancelled because of inclement weather. This time I am determined to do it. Bring wet weather gear if neccesary!

So, the usual 09.55 from Seaford and I will meet you at Lewes station. Please note that the whip only accepts pounds sterling - no rand or yen please!

Sandyballs

Charlie's reply

Wednesday is good for me; can't do Tuesday.
Charlie.

April's joining suggestions

This month's ramble is a bit late - Wednesday 29th. As this is relatively close to the Prague

ramble I thought originally that it might be a good idea to meet up, have a spot of lunch and discuss Prague-related topics such as the vexed issue of T-shirts.
 
Now Froggy tells me that Matt (who is currently in Japan) and Froggy himself (who is soon to go to RSA) are not keen on NERDS T-shirts this time. That may be the answer to that particular question but it shouldn't prevent us from meeting us for lunch!
 
Next week is good for me. Anybody fancy next Wednesday 8th? Failing that Tuesday or Thursday? Maybe meet at Seaford?
 
Harry

March 2015 Ramble

NERDS' Ramble No. 305. Tuesday 17/3/15.

Those Present – Sandyballs, Froggy, Lafayette, Curly Clarke,

Dio, and Matt (a bit).

St Patrick's Day 2015.

“The NERDS are coming round, my dear, so be sure to wear your prettiest dress and we'd like coffee and biscuits at ten sharp.” So spake Lafayette more in hope than expectation to his beloved spouse on the day when Irish mania was due to break out all over the land. “ Fuck off !” replied Mrs Lafayette succinctly. “Oh well,” thought Lafayette, “it was worth a try. I'm sure my mother would never have answered my father back like that – if he'd been in a world famous rambling group and was having them round to his house. But sadly times (and spouses) change[some more frequently than others].

Today's ramble was largely a repeat of St Patrick's day last year which had proved to be quite enjoyable, and so why break with an old formula? Firstly the NERDS all converged chez Lafayette where he (faute de mieux) put on his prettiest dress

and served up coffee and biscuits and Curly had had the generosity to contribute a bottle of Jamesons to get the party going. We were all devastated to hear that Matt was going to abandon us to go to The Irish Club in London ( bet it's one of those clubs nudge, nudge, wink, wink where they go in for patriotic drinking and who knows what else – probably some sort of terrorist recruiting ground or worse.)

Anyway Matt was going to leave us; Paco had sciatica and couldn't walk, but the rest of us were joined by Dio (dressed all in black and leather to Matt's delight) because a) they always make a big fuss about St Patrick's Day in New York and b) he likes a drink.

Froggy told us he was going to have a new crown

(in his mouth, not on his head;

Sandyballs said he was going to have implants ( not where you think) and Matt began lusting after Lafayette's bijou coffee table which was actually mediaeval, very valuable and which he'd nicked out of a Cistertian monastery during a holiday in Italy. Froggy

said he had recently celebrated the sixteenth anniversary of his cats

(were they NERDS too? and were they going to Prague like us to celebrate their having been together so long?) Matt said he'd swap his trilby for Lafayette's coffee table. Lafayette wasn't sure; he thought he might have to run this deal past his ferocious wife, although she, being a catholic and half irish might definitely swing the decision in Matt's favour.

Anyway, the bottle of Jamesons having been devastated, no deals having been struck and with biscuit crumbs all over the floor, Lafayette shepherded every one out of his man cave and up to the bus stop for the first leg of the day's jollities.

Just as Froggy was scrabbling around for his bus fare

(ha, ha) a couple of green St Patrick's, leprechaun, dickhead – type hats fell out of his pocket. “ I've only got two,” (from last year) he said guiltily, “ so two of you will have to go without.” Sandyballs took exception to this (quite rightly) and complained that the other NERDS were being discriminated against, not to mention being persecuted and marginalised by Froggy's selfish behaviour.

Good old Jamesons, it never fails to incite NERD'S dissent. Fortunately the bus came just then so today's first quarrel was put on hold for a while.

The NERDS got off the bus at Rottingdean and went up the main road hoping to see Irish flags slung outside a number of pubs. But Irish flags there were none – and the pubs were shut. Hadn't Rottingdean woken up to the fact that it was St Paddy's day and that the NERDS were thirsty? Dio murmured “It wasn't like this in New York; we had parades, green pom pom girls, drunkenness, debauchery and Guinness.” Someone pointed out we were actually in Rottingdean where people were so old they actually welcomed death,

even if just to alleviate the boredom. Why were we here anyway?

Fortunately, a little further up the road, by the duck pond, just past Whipping Post Lane (sic) we found the lunch pub. It was The Plough (this is practically rural Sussex), but of course, the damned place wasn't open yet. So, in order to waste a few minutes S.B. lined us all up in the “garden” beneath a sign which said “Old Sussex Relics”

and which was supposed to imply that previously in Sussex people used scythes before lawnmowers were invented.

See the photos. Without a drink the NERDS were feeling a bit old and wishing they were in New York. ( I wonder if they had any other colour of pom pom girls apart from green; mind you, any colour girl would have done just then to liven up Rottingdean, any girl, even.)

Fortunately, when it opened, the friendly barman (Lyndon) recognised it was St Paddy's and fixed us up with Harveys and good ham and eggs with chips (duck eggs, too).

Much better than the same alleged meal in The Counting House. (NERDS have more pull than Coronas, obviously).

Time for a bit of rambling.

Sandyballs always feels guilty if we just eat and drink and tit about.

So we struck off up the steep hill that was Sheep Walk towards the Downs.

There was a different scarecrow guarding the allotments this year – a Dracula Scarecrow

– obviously placed there to suck the blood out of any rogue sheep which got out of line. Up, up we went; Froggy took photos lining us up against the old windmill to give a bit of local colour.

On, on, up past Rodean school where we rather hoped the girlies might be out practising their green pom pom routines. Sadly, they all seemed to have gone back to Abu Dhabi or Singapore for half term. Then we descended, crossed the main road and took the long, long concrete road infront of the sea to Brighton Marina where we heard that there was a Wetherspoons.......

By good fortune most of the customers in Wetherspoons had finished their lunch and had cleared off so we could get a table to sit down around. They didn't seem to have any St Paddy's drinks here although the trainee barmaids had a few daft hats hidden around as a token gesture of celebration. However they wouldn't give us any (hats) so several NERDS continued to have their human rights ignored.

Since the St Paddy's atmosphere was still a bit understated in this pub, Sandyballs amused us all by relating tales of how his family had suffered under the Great Potato Famine of the 1840s. “Honestly, you've no idea of the depth of deprivation and hardship which took place then.” he wept, “ Nobody could get any chips for weeks and weeks, and you had to murder people if you wanted a bag of crisps to go with your beer.” the other NERDS nodded their heads in sympathy. No chips; that's worse than having to read Froggy's book “all Shagged out at Thirty.” (which fortunately he hasn't written yet.)

Outside we got the number 7 bus

and fought off a large group of Korean school children who apparently were keen readers of our blog in Korea where it out-rivals even Top Gear in popularity. They had realised how famous all the NERDS were and wanted to take selfies of themselves and everyone. “ Are you the one called Ringo?” asked one of Lafayette. “ No, sweet child, I'm the second most famous author you will ever study on your school curriculum.” replied Lafayette, happy to know that his write-ups were achieving true fame at last, albeit in obscure eastern countries.

The bus journey was enlivened by Lafayette getting bored and trying to steal the wheelchairs from a couple of women who got in his way on the lower deck of the bus. “We think your write-ups are crap!” yelled one of the women after Lafayette had insisted on turfing her out of her chair because there were no seats left downstairs. “ I don't care, I have your wheelchair and my fame so nothing can tarnish my mood today.” replied Lafayette haughtily.

In Brighton Lafayette abandoned his wheelchair and let Sandyballs lead everybody to where there were bound to be St Patrick's celebrations ie The Fiddlers Elbow,

an everso Irish pub we only go to on this particular day. Sure enough you could hear the racket going on about three streets away. The diddly dee music was deafening, it was a sea of stupid leprechaun hats and drunken Irish good will.

It was the only pub Lafayette had come across with bouncers on the door to prevent you leaving, at least if you had a glass in your hand ( I mean you might fall down and cut your finger or something.) Inside it was pure green mayhem; getting served wasn't too bad, it was trying to let them know what you actually wanted in the maelstrom of the unholy row that was difficult. As long as you yelled “Guinness!” or “Whiskey!” you were on a safe bet, otherwise you just had to settle for going rapidly deaf.

After standing around for half an hour in stupid hats drinking freezing cold stuff and being jostled by mad ( but jovial) Irish drinkers, the NERDS finally fled outside for Froggy

to take some photos. A couple of nice girls

who had caught a whiff of the NERDS fame from being on Facebook with the Korean group insisted on being a part of our snap taking. Since we were all now dying for a pee we headed off to the other Wetherspoons in the next street where there might actually be a chance of getting in the bog. The Fiddlers Elbow

is a cracking pub but you can only stand that sort of thing for about half an hour once a year.

In “The Other Wetherspoons” we finally managed to get in a booth and chilled out a bit.

The doubles of Kraken and Coke were found to have a soothing effect to counter the excitement of the Irish going mad, and Sandyballs started to fall asleep. Luckily before he fell beneath the table he managed to phone his Number 2 Daughter who was working in the vicinity (no longer as a poorly paid barmaid – more's the pity, the cheap rounds we used to get.)

Anyway dear Becky came in, looked beautiful, bought us all another drink and wafted her dad back home in her car. What more could you want in a daughter? NB. See Christmas ramble account for Paco's daughter, Lara's skills and willingness to drive. Lafayette made a mental note to get Danielle some driving lessons.

So, another hilarious St Patrick's Day which started off rather quietly and then rose to an amazing crescendo in The Fiddler's Elbow. We had all now been given daft hats to put in the cupboard to save for next year so no need to squabble on the bus again. Thanks to all who made it; those who didn't missed a great day!

Los Nierdos para Siempre!

Lafayette.