The "New Forest" Ramble!

N.E.R.D.S. Ramble No. 247.

8th - 10th June 2010.

The Isle of Wight Ramble.

Those Present - Froggy, Paco, B.T., Sandyballs, Lafayette.


Day One - Getting There.


That day the NERDS were not well. Below is a list of their then ailments:

Lafayette - sore throat and writers’ cramp (from last month)

Sandy balls - poorly, gouty toe with pins inside it.

B. T. - a feeling of impending doom.

Paco - a feeling of not quite being on this planet.

Froggy - Obsessive Compulsive Syndrome.

Paco had volunteered to drive because he’d got a car that would hold five fat bastards
and which we hoped would get us down to The New Forest in one piece. Lafayette had been promised lots of walks round the N.F. with opportunities to pet ponies, moon about in leafy glades and get drunk on local ice cream - but he was cruelly deceived and it was not to be. Nor did the weather look too hopeful - I mean, when was the last time you saw Carol Kirkwood dressed in a diving suit to tell you about a few possible mild showers? (Nice tits, though).

Before picking up Sandyballs Lafayette decided he needed a few bottles of water to mix with his medecine and so a stop was made at the kiosk opposite Lewes station.
Unfortunately this was not one of those places where you can dodge into and say “six bottles of water and a Daily Worker, please” and get away in less than thirty seconds. Oh, no. There were just three people ahead of Lafayette in the queue but they’d all been obviously sent out to get both lunch and dinner for the staff of most of the factories in Lewes. And to make things worse the shop people were laboriously buttering each piece of bread and then it was “Do you want grilled porpoise in it as well as that piece of mermaid’s belly button you originally specified? And was that with chips? Good job that Lafayette was the patient type because after thirty five minutes or so Paco came out to see if he’d absconded with the whip.
Anyway, all watered up, we finally went to pick up Sandyballs who was shamefacedly standing there in true sartorial shambles. Pleading poorly foot syndrome he had had the temerity that day to get dressed in sandals with socks!!! Lafayette was appalled; What a faux pas! What would the NERDS say? What would lady Gaga say? What would Willy Walsh say? (Two of Lafayette’s current role models). Lafayette himself would never stoop as low as this however bad his throat felt. Fortunately the NERDS were squabbling over the contents of a hipflask or some such and failed to notice this
gross social gaffe. And so on to Hampshire.

On arrival at The Kings Arms in Lymington The NERDS immediately smirked at the barmaid (Sam) and ordered four pints of Ringwood (with one pint of lager for one of us who claimed he was suffering from a mimsy tummy [not mumsy bum]). This, the local beer was excellent and the expected rain had not yet reached this far south. Unfortunately, because our rooms weren’t quite ready we were denied the possibility of an afternoon’s crash and so, reluctantly, we were dragooned into a post prandial stroll by Sandyballs who seemed to be the only one with a game plan.

The stroll took us along the pretty docky seafront where twats with blazers and club ties were waffling on about tacking , mizzling, casting off, walking the plank and what a good job the Conservatives had got back in again wasn’t it? Froggy who was having problems now with his mimsy bladder found a Dr Who Loo. What’s one of these? You may well ask. Well, both Lafayette and Sandyballs noticed that when Froggy went in he looked like Froggy, but when he came out he was old, bent and had a funny beard. So he had obviously time-travelled (forwards). Eventually Lafayette who had only had three pints of Ringwood for lunch worked out that it wasn’t actually Froggy who had come out, but someone else. Another mystery of the universe solved!

Deciding that if we couldn’t beat the Yacht Twats we might as well join them, we had an ice cream and repaired to the Yacht Club for a few gin and tonics. Every one was sitting around in wealthy, self satisfied splendour (the rest of the customers, not the NERDS) and so we bankrupted the whip on yachty drinks and sought directions from the yachty barmaid (nice tits, again). Sandyballs thought he had vaguely followed what she had been saying about where to go but whether this had anything to do with part two of our walk was anyone’s guess.

Out we went, and walked round the point (that’s nautical language for up the road) and thereafter ensued a mild dispute amongst the NERDS about the next day’s route. Lafayette said he had been faithfully promised that we should go all round the New Forest because he had been running short of coconuts at home and wanted to gather some from the foresty trees. Nobody had the heart to disillusion him about the state of the local flora and fauna (apparently it wasn’t coconut season until late September when the locals pulled the pigs off truffling duties and sent them up the trees) so by force majeur Lafayette was persuaded to visit the Isle of Wight because the coconuts were better there (allegedly, perhaps).

We wandered au bord de la mer for a bit until Paco’s middle age began to tell on him.
So we sat down and watched all the young people sprinting around with dogs, getting fit and whatnot, and then we short cutted back into town feeling that we couldn’t impose more of this gruelling walking on poor Paco (besides, we were getting thirsty)
Back in town and a bit disorientated we asked for further directions from a lady who was dead-heading triffids in her front garden. She was quite willing (to tell us the way) and said her garden was known as lost corner because everyone er…got lost there. Mindful of the Dr Who Lavatory, we scurried off not wishing to fall through a tear in the space/time continuum and subsequently find ourselves in a place with no pubs.

Fortunately we got back to The Kings Arms OK and were shown to our rooms.
Ah, yes the rooms…. Sandyballs, B.T. and Lafayette were in The Family Room.
This was sort of on the low side of almost adequate because at least we had a kettle
(no cups, mind), a telly, en-suite shower, no coat hangers (for B.T.’s tights) a choice of black or a white rats to keep us company and a smell of fresh paint. Sandyballs ‘bagged’ the biggest double bed before anyone else could opt for it and Lafayette ‘bagged’ the cot nearest the ‘en suite’ so he wouldn’t have so far to go for his midnight pee. That left the bed nearest the wardrobe for BT who was later coerced into making tea, coffee and other assorted drinks for everyone! So not too bad really. Froggy and Paco’ s room was a bit more basic - no ensuite, no mirror, no towels to go with the no en suite and no choice of rats. Pretty grim, you might say. So the first thing B.T. did was to make a lightning sortie chez Pacfrog and nick all the coat hangers. “ Now at least we’ll have something to eat, “ he said “ You forgot the rats,” said Lafayette.

Having settled in, Pacfrog went outside to smoke something nasty and then we all went off for aperitifs at another nautical pub called the Ship Inn and Co. ‘along the point’ We sat outside where the smokers weren’t allowed to smoke (tee, hee) and where Froggy entertained us with funny jokes he had heard last week at his primary school (Lafayette particularly liked the one about the hen, the frog and the library books).

Back at the Kings Arms we almost named that day’s experiences The Recession Ramble because of the shitty state of Pacfrog’s room but instead listened to B.T.’s conspiracy theories about Froggy’s French i/d card (wot?) how the French are determined to rip off all foreigners and take away their pensions, and how the Albigensian Movement for Democracy had been infiltrated by the French Taleban
as far back as the eleventh century. ( So, are you going to support your adopted country in the World Cup, or not then, B.T.?)

The evening was spent in some Bengali restaurant where the birianis were too dry and the waiter was too above his station. I mean, fancy telling Lafayette that you weren’t supposed to eat curry with your fingers. He’s been to places where the natives eat curries with their enemies’ fingers - which they’d cut off in battle.

We trailed back along the High street and came across a real whiz looking French restaurant which we’d so far managed to overlook. Tomorrow, perhaps, although B.T. warned us that the French used to feed snails to the Cathars in the thirteenth century to make them blow up so that the King of France could excommunicate them all and get his hands on their massive assets (Was Carol Kirkwood a Cathar, then?). Anyway, back to The Kings Arms where we renewed our fragile relationship with barmaid
Sam and where Paco suddenly lost his cool about the I.S.U., the Independent Stalinist Union to which he had once belonged but to his chagrin had been taken over by the
N.C.P.S., the Nancy Corporate Pipesmokers’ Syndicate which had blocked his promotion and forced him to retire prematurely. What bastards!

Lafayette was unable to stand any more of this self pitying twaddle so went to bed -
only to be woken by a thunderous knocking further down the corridor when Sandyballs in his cups (for a change) had begun hammering on the next room’s door and demanding that Lafayette let him in (ha, ha). Fortunately B.T. managed to smooth over the angry person who had been disturbed in mid-coitus , and after a few doses of rum and cherry cake the Family Room NERDS all crashed out.


Day Two - The Isle of Wight Ramble.

Sandyballs awoke early craving tea. Since FamilyNERDS had a kettle this would be no problem. There were even teabags and a bit of milk and stuff. Oh dear! the ensuing brew tasted as if the rats had pissed in it. Everyone’s tasted the same - sort of like rat-piss. Sandyballs had given up by now and returned grumbling to his pit. Up rose B.T., bright eyed and bushy tailed (sort of) and volunteered to make coffee. This turned out to be not quite as vile, although we had used all the milk by now. Lafayette came up with an original solution. Let’s put Spanish brandy in it and pretend it’s milk. Seemed to work all right. Maybe if Lafayette puts empty brandy bottles out on his doorstep the milkman will change them for full ones - who knows?

Froggy strolled in and drank the rest of the milk. Said Paco was poncing around in a cool dressing gown wearing a hat with one of those little tassels on the top - No shit!
NERDS went down for a fried breakfast and met Marisol - all 4 foot 11inches of her.
She was Spanish, blonde, cooked a mean breakfast and was in charge of the pub.
Better be nice to her then. She was OK, even spoke English, had all the attributes to be a perfect wife. No, not for you B.T., you’ve had three already! Better go out before any more bad ideas surface.

So a long walk to the ferry terminal where most of us get cheapo senior tickets with one glaring exception. What’s that, Froggy? You’re still at primary school? No senior ticket for you then. Grump Grump. Next is standing in the footies queue to get on board. Grump, grump, still. NERDS get to the front of the queue and get RLE. Too many people on this ferry; you’re not posh enough; wait for the next one in ten minutes. OK, not a problem; it’s a nice day most of us thought. But from the rear came an ever increasing ‘Grump, grump everso grump. They never did this at my
primary school blah, blah, blah.etc, etc.’ In the end we got on board but found there was no bar. Wot sort of ferry is this then? Oh well, it’s only a half hour crossing.

On the lovely Isle of Wight we all piled off, rambled twenty five yards and dived into The Kings Head. “Do you sell coconuts?” asked Lafayette. “No, but we have got some beer.” said the friendly barman “I’m afraid all our coconut pigs have been loaned out to the mainland where they’re up trees on the far side of that New Forest Thingy.”
“ Bugger!” thought Lafayette. “I’ll have to drink more beer. I don’t suppose you sell pedometers do you, only we walk so far on these rambles that it’s nice to keep a track.”“ No, sorry, “ said the kind man. “We’re fresh out of pedometers at the moment; it’s those coconut pigs you know; they took them all over to the mainland with them.”

The NERDS made the best of a bad job since there were no coconuts and drank a lot of the local Yates beer. “It’s our pigs that make this beer, you know,” said the kind barman. “They mash it with their trotters; that’s what gives it its special flavour.”
“That is, “he added “when they’re not out looking for coconuts.” Lafayette started to vaguely wonder what had been in that special milk he’d put in his coffee that morning.

Sandyballs insisted we ramble further so we went about a mile round the harbour and visited a local primary school. Here Froggy interviewed the kids in the playground and got some more jokes for his stand up comic routine material. However, the lure of the Piggy Beer drew us back to the Kings Head and we had an excellent cheap fish and chip meal there for the price of half a coconut each. Lafayette began to compose a song along the lines of “This is the shortest ramble we’ve ever been on!” but while he thought he’d got the lyrics right he wasn’t sure about the tune and decided to let Froggy have a crack at this when he got home and out of hearing

On the ferry Froggy seemed a bit perturbed about some feud he’d had with somebody at work. Nobody we knew, thank God, but Paco lent a sympathetic ear. Back on dry land we thought we’d go for a drink (how novel!) and wandered off to The Waggon and Horses which was ostensibly closed. Grump, grump, grump, we went across the car park until all of a sudden another kind barman appeared and offered us the use of his pub garden as long as we behaved soberish and didn’t go on about feuds at work.

This worked fine; the weather was pleasantly warm and everyone was mellow. Paco and Lafayette went back into the pub for another round and nearly got loved to death by Milo, the pub boxer who nearly broke Lafayette’s leg with his enthusiastically wagging tail. Finally we thought we ought to get back to The Kings Head in Lymington otherwise Marisol might be missing us.

But the well laid plans of NERDS oft go astray. Half way back Paco realised he wasn’t wearing his dressing gown any more; and what was worse this was where he kept his car keys! Panic, panic, panic! Nor was it one of those special dressing gowns equipped with a satnav that found its own way back to its owner when you whistled. What to do? First get back to the pub and have a drink to get rid of the stress. This we did; rang up The Isle of Pigs but no keys; rang up the ferry but ring back onTuesday; rang up the Doggy Pub and bingo! The dressing gown was lining Milo’s doggy basket and he didn’t want to give it up. He’d also swallowed the car keys. Looks like Paco had some hard decisions to make, ie. Get back to the pub, get the dog drunk, extricate the keys somehow and sneak off with his dressing gown.

A couple of hours later our lift back home had been assured. The dog had been really generous and even told Paco under which bush he had sicked up the car keys.
Good Boy, Milo! That’s worth another drink to celebrate. Let’s go to Brasserie Gerard for dinner.

This was a good place to go. They did proper French food - like steak and chips and proper French wine - like red,white and rosay (please excuse spelling; only Mrs Lafayette can operate the accents on this gadget [I can = rosé]; ed). The one waiter was French so B.T. acted as interpreter for the main course, and the other was Iranian so Paco was deputed to try him in Turkish after Lafayette’s Urdu had failed. Sadly they both spoke English as did the girly waitress with the short hair who looked French but came from Winchester. Anyway, after a few glasses of wine and a couple of forkfulls of Froggy’s chips who cared? The meal -coquilles Saint Jacques, steak, chips, Froggy’s chips, cheese, vin rouge, vin rosé, and ice cream for Lafayette was very pleasant. Pity about the size of the bill; and all for us poor NERDS who only eat like sparrows at the best of times.

Back at The Kings Arms and in the Family/NERDS room one of us kept going on about somebody nasty at work (Newhaven) who was (allegedly) being machiaevellian, cruel, unsympathetic, horrible, wicked, awful, even crueller and “not being nice to me”. By now we had all got fed up with hearing this terrible person’s name being touted about and began singing a lovely song to drown out the waves of paranoia coming from the end of one of the beds.

The song which was brought out at regular intervals went something like this:

Tin of Beans, Tin of Beans , riding through the glen;
Tin of Beans, Tin of Beans, with his band of men;
Feared by the Frog, loved by the Dog; (No not her, how dare you!)
Tin of Beans, Tin of Beans, Tin of Beans.

Good eh? Lafayette is now thinking of compiling a short collection of NERDS’ ditties in a slim volume (very slim). The above will take its rightful place as No.1
Together with such classics as ‘This is the worst ramble we’ve ever been on’
and ‘ I’m a Polish Gypsy (P.A., P.A., P.A.) - remember that one?

Day Three - Getting Back.

This was the bit Philby hated most in Shropshire - the final Wrap Party when you knew that Reality beckoned her boring finger at you and the drinking had to stop.
But not quite yet.

We descended to pay our dues and to gob up the last big fry-up. Little Marisol continued her usual high standard of catering. She had imported her brother, Josay (accents again, I’m afraid ) who seemed to have had more wives than even B.T. and actually looked quite Spanish in a dago-ish sort of way ( not like Paco who must have been a little blond angel when he was born).

Marisol told us her life story, Josay told us his life story , Froggy told everyone about his book, Lafayette told everybody about his terrible experience on The Chartres, Sandyballs told everybody about his toe and B.T. told everybody about the iniquities of the French government. At the end of all this we felt we all knew each other quite well. And so we left Lymington. Lafayette felt the rooms in the pub reminded him of the crappy rooms in the Louis Armstrong in Dover when he was on relief in the 70‘s; and he felt rather nostalgic; Sandyballs reserved judgement.

And so back on the road which surprisingly wound onwards to The Black Rabbit at Arundel. We always end up here, we always sit in the same spot and it usually rains. Not today though; the rain held off and we had a last pint (or so) of Badger Beer and sang a few choruses of ‘ Tin of Beans’ when the atmosphere got a bit fraught. We decided that there was in fact a difference between Old Gits and Old Trouts - The former are NERDS and pub customers, and the latter are parasites who faff about and get in the way of the former. Twas ever thus.


We agreed that in general it had been a successful three days. There had been two interesting drunken rants, lots of exciting food, drink and people, and nobody had got seriously injured.

Thanks of course go to Paco for driving

To Froggy for still being our ‘Yoof Rep’ and taking photos
To Sandyballs for organising the “walks”
To B.T. for taking the big Photos .
And to Lafayette for writing this stuff and making up songs.


Now time to detox.

Ha, Ha, good luck.

Lafayette.

The May 2010 Ramble

Well here it is folks; The ramble accordging to Lafayette. There do appear to be a few anomolies but the photographs do provide an interesting account although there is not one phorograph of Froggy. Is this because he was not there? Or is it that he could not prevail upon anyone to 'take one with me in it'. Anyway; here commencth the lesson:-

N.E.R.D.S. Ramble 246 - 12th May 2010

Those Present - Lafayette, Froggy, El Paco, Sandy balls (a bit).

The Dithering About Ramble.


Today the NERDS were somewhat depleted. Matt put up the usual pathetic excuse that he couldn’t be bothered coming; Captain Haddock was nowhere to be seen; Bronco was off lassooing horses in the Camargue and Sandyballs had a gout related toe infection meaning he couldn’t walk but could issue instructions from his Bunker in Berlin. Unfortunately for Froggy the instructions were written down in minuscule Martian and sent to his mobile phone. This, together with the fact that Froggy had lost his reading glasses meant that no way could he make sense of anything, so nobody had a fucking clue where we were supposed to actually ramble that day.

So off we set from Lewes station. At least the weather was OK - sunnyish and reasonably warm. Froggy led us through Southover towards Kingston saying all the while that we had done this ramble before so nothing could possibly go wrong could it? Paco trundled along moaning that his eldest daughter was pregnant again and had forgotten his birthday the day before, and Lafayette covered his eyes in despair convinced disasters were going to happen - ho ho, just watch this space.

We got to a field - yes I know this happens sometimes in NERDS’ rambles - but was it the right field? Where did we go from here? Which direction was the correct one? Was the ramble actually today, anyway? Paco assured us it was ( and he should know)
There was a lot of DITHERING and FAFFING ABOUT cos it was obvious that Froggy didn’t have a clue what to do next even though Kingston (our pit stop destination) was practically visible as the crow flew. Lafayette was snorting with impatience so Froggy took some nice photos by a gate (which gate? Was it the right gate?) to shut him up and calm him down.

Eventually we hit a road (was it the right road even?) and prepared to go across country through a farm towards Kingston except Froggy’s map wasn’t very clear and he hadn’t got his reading glasses and the sun was in his eyes and he wanted a wee and where were we anyway? Eventually Lafayette, in an uncharacteristic burst of impatience, took the ramble by the horns and led his Chosen People out of The Wilderness unto Kingston via the A 249.

Finally we had got to The Juggs, the pit-stop pub agreed on by Sandyballs. Now we could relax a bit and let some of the tension and stress that attends each ramble just ebb away.(lol again). Finally after about three pints of Bishops Finger (rude Bishop!)
Lafayette stopped snorting with impatience at other people’s frailties and realised that other NERDS weren’t perhaps as perfect as he, and he should make allowances for this humbling fact. At least Froggy had recommended the beer here so he was forgiven a bit (only a bit ) for his FAFFING and ARSING ABOUT during the route mastering.
When Lafayette had calmed down and stopped cursing, swearing and banging his head against the flint wall, Froggy lead everyone through Kingston out into the countryside towards the Swan at Southover via the large bridge over the A27 where some pillock had once jumped off with a rope around his neck to try to commit suicide and ended up decapitating himself (ie. did actually kill himself but not quite in the way he had envisioned).

Anyway, we entered The Swan to see Sandyballs in his bathchair moaning that his foot hurt and that’s why he couldn’t have got the pints in for the rest of us (just his own) and where had we been, we were late. So Paco blamed Lafayette for drinking too much and Lafayette blamed Froggy for inept route mastering and Froggy blamed Sandyballs for sending him illegible instructions and normal NERDS relations were resumed.

After a good dinner of some pie or other that Sandyballs had recommended (it was very good) Lafayette decided not to endorse Baby Flintoff’s passport application since he was too pissed to write properly and he didn’t want to end up with Baby Flintoff being issued with a forged Nigerian passport by mistake. And so Sandyballs wheeled himself off to get his stitches plucked out (It’ll only take five minutes or so and I’ll be out this afternoon riding my bike - you just watch, ha ha ). We never saw him again.

So, the rest of the NERDS decamped along the road to the King’s Head simply to escape the incipient showers and not to drink any more beer - that would be immoral.
While Lafayette was prising more money out of the hole in the wall Paco had been making enquiries of the barman and found there was no cognac to be had for the café cognacs. So we had to drink café /malt whisky (not quite the same). Meanwhile in the back room Froggy had come upon a vision of 22 stone loveliness holding a little dog who said her name was Ivy and she was half Peruvian.

Paco entered the room, gave a start and they started talking to each other in Spanish.
Lafayette’s Spanish is only Home Office exam level (ie. rubbish) but he managed to piece together the following conversation:

Paco I haven’t seen you for ages, how is your mum?

Ivy You should care , you bastardo, after you abandoned us I heard she was selling herself on the streets of Caracas.

Paco (shame facedly) I couldn’t stay, I met this nice Brazilian woman and she wanted to have my babies.

Ivy And what about me? I was only little, I had to go off to Mexico and buy little dogs to trade for food otherwise I too might have ended up pregnant like all your other relatives. By the way, what happened to that friend of yours - the nice one with the beard who spoke crap Spanish and who was always trying to get my knickers off?

Paco Sadly, he went to a better place.


What happened next is only to guess because the rest of the NERDS (all two of them) ran out of the pub and scampered home before any more sordid details of Paco’s past were revealed.

So, an exciting ramble with lots of incident and excitement. No plaudits to anyone because it nearly ended up as a shambles, although thanks to Froggy for spotting the Bishop’s Finger. Lets hope Sandyballs manages to get on his bike again before Christmas.

Next month The New Forest - Whoopee!


Lafayette.

The May Ramble 2010

Here are Sandyballs' joining instructions.
Dear Nerds,

This month's ramble will take place on Wednesday 12 th. For reasons orthopaedic I will not be able to take part but this will not stop me setting the route and meeting you for lunch. In my place I delegate the actual routemastering to Froggy, so you shouldn't put a foot wrong, should you? I will be emailing Frog with suggested directions in a separate email.

Basically the route starts and finishes in Lewes and involves a pint stop at the Juggs Arms in Kingston and a lunch at the Swan in Southover - which is where I will meet you. Suggest that Seaford/ Newhaven types take the 9.58/ 10.05. Will hopefully see you all there at about 1.00 PM.

Hope you all enjoy good weather but will have a good laugh if you don't!

Sandyballs


However, it appears that Muscles Matt will not be attending as he is having his contral heating "fixed". ( A euphemism if ever there was one).
I hope you have a quorum and that the ramble is a good one.

Regards,
BT

May Ramble

The May ramble to be announced soon, or whenever Sandyballs gets around to it as he will not be there but having his appendage "fixed". Lafayette or Froggy will no doubt be sending out the appropriate notification.

N.E.R.D.S’ RAMBLE No. 245. 21/4/10.

Those Present - B.T. Sandyballs, Froggy, El Paco, Lafayette.


The Superbly Organised Ramble.


Today nothing could go wrong. Froggy was Organiser and Routemaster so absolutely nothing whatsoever would be allowed to get in the way of an absolutely fantastic ramble. The NERDS all knew this since the joining instructions had been published about a fortnight in advance telling us exactly where we would be going, how long it would take to get there, what to wear, what time to get the bus, how much money to bring, make sure you go to the lavatory first, have you got a clean hanky? and don’t forget to kiss your mum goodbye!

The only two flies in the ointment were (a) Would Sandyballs be able to get off nights early and avoid the dreaded embarks exercise and (b) would B.T. turn up at all due to hostile volcanic activity which might make his plane nose-dive into the Channel.
In the event, Froggy had a word with President Obama who contacted the Night CIO (Maybe the one with the nice, mumsy buttocks) and got Sandyballs off OK, and then he also contacted the president of Iceland who stopped the volcano for a brief window of 24 hours to enable BT to get to chez Lafayette where he was staying. Who says that organisation is not best done down to the finest details? Froggy should be the NATO general in charge of the Afghan war - then we’d see some results!

Actually BT had been staying at Lafayette’s for a few days already so the pair of them had been a bit overexposed to calvados and were feeling a little tired and jaded.
Never mind, the grand adventure was on. Lafayette rescued Sandyballs from the port where ‘Mumsy Bum CIO’ wanted to keep him as a sexual pet, and then the three of them set out to get the bus to chez Froggy for aperitifs.

Except the best laid plans of frogs and men…………
Lafayette dragged his fellow NERDS on to what he thought was the right bus, but it turned out to be the ‘go all round the houses bus’ which gave everyone a brilliant tour of most of the back streets of Seaford, and ended up by the cemetery. So, quelling a desire to go and pay homage to A Famous Belgian once again, the trio hiked along the road , at least half a mile to Froggy’s . It was all his fault, of course, he hadn’t told us not to get the 12A bus instead of the No 12 - what an oversight!


Poor Froggy; not only was he exhausted from the intellectual challenges of making sure everything was going to run to plan, but he had been up half the night cleaning and hoovering so that we should have nothing to complain about when we got there.
Anyway, the food was good ( Banofee pie cookies ) and the drink gave us a choice of two whiskies (Scotch and Irish) and El Paco had turned up despite Lafayette having forgotten to ring him the night before on account of his being rat-arsed at the time.
So everyone indulged themselves greatly and then we were led out on to phase one of today’s ramble.

Everyone stood at the bus stop waving their bus passes in the faces of Froggy and BT
(who hadn’t got them) and then managed to get on the right bus to somewhere near Beachy Head to start off. The road was long and stoney, but straight enough so that there was at this stage no chance of getting lost. However we soon came to a dividing of the ways. Which road to take? Froggy wasn’t sure so out came the Mappa Mundi for reference. El Paco seemed to know the right direction but he was ignored. Froggy twisted the map around, tried to read it upside down, tried murmuring incantations, all to no avail. Paco insisted he knew where to go but Froggy wasn’t having any. Finally two hippy ramblers turned up and pointed us in Paco’s direction. So much for tight organisation! Paco now has a Cassandra complex.

It was a glorious, sunny day and the NERDS were singing along happily. All the little lambs we saw had numbers on them - one for each NERD, there were lots of Old Trout ramblers about, but thankfully they were miles from the pub we intended to invade. Froggy had a bad feeling about this pub, he said the people who ran it were snooty and offhand (so why take us there?) but as it happened the barmaid at The Eight Bells at Jevington was really nice and took to Harry ‘cos her boyfriend had the same name or something (blech! blech!).

We sat in the garden in the sun and Froggy was made to serve us with lots of sauces and condiments and stuff while we gave him marks out of ten for fetching and carrying . He got so flustered at one point that he told us he’d got a barrow in his family (Is this a sort of welsh family burial plot?). But when the food came (we all had meaty pie) the pies all had tons of meat in them and there were loads of chips so the food was definitely ’NERDS approved.‘ Froggy said he was never given any vegetables as a kid and that’s why he himself nearly grew up as a meaty pie -
different taste, though.

We staggered on for the second half of the ramble (exactly three miles, not a metre more, not a metre less) and got taken along a nasty, horrible, busy road with lots of wizzy cars going passed us. Eventually we hit woody fieldy areas again , trouble was they were mostly in the direction of up and Lafayette’s bowels began to play up too. Whether it was the excess of calvados taken the night before or his wife’s chile con carne he had had at breakfast (magic stuff!) he could contain himself no longer and had to wander off for an emergency crap. Good job there was a nice copse further up the hill where he could squat and wallow! Pity there weren’t any goats or Pakistanis to make sure he had a nice clean bum afterwards - like in the old days, but Hey! You can’t expect everything laid on for you.

When he returned to the fold Lafayette found the rest of the NERDS all flaked out lying in the middle of a very pleasant meadow, evidently the heavy lunch and the unaccustomed rigorous and disciplined activity had taken its toll. Lafayette let them slumber awhile and then woke them gently with a thunderous fart.

We carried on ever upwards it seemed but eventually descended another pleasant meadow into East Dean where The Tiger (pub) was waiting for us. Here they sold ‘Legless Rambler’ beer (and I’m not kidding!) which came from the Beachy Head Brewery. ‘I wonder where the Beachy Head Brewery is’ quoth Paco…‘D’oh!’ We all replied. We then spent a very pleasant hour in the late afternoon sun quaffing Legless Ramblers and trying to decide where we should go for the NERDS’ 250th. We decided to disqualify Philby from this since he’d missed a few rambles already this year and we didn’t fancy going to Belgium so soon again, anyway.

And so we all walked back to the bus stop and left Froggy standing when the wrong bus came again. Actually it was the right bus for all of us - it just didn’t happen to take Froggy back exactly to his front door (as planned).

And so another superlative ramble combining fantastic weather, good food and absolutely impeccable planning from Froggy. We all hope that BT gets home OK because Lafayette has nearly run out of red wine and calvados.

Looking forward to the 250th , you NERDS. (wherever the fuck it is!)



Lafayette.

Froggy's joining instuctions for April Ramble

Fellow Nierdos,
Once again t'will be the number 12 bus to Eastbourne Downs Golf Course, but this time we'll be going in the opposite direction towards the Eight Bells in Jevington (which does fabulous Bambi Burgers). According to that wonderful tool; Google Map Distance Calculator, it is precisely 3 miles before lunch and precisely 3 miles after lunch back to the Tiger Inn, East Dean which is now open all day, every day. There will be about a mile of road walking, out of Jevington but the rest of the walk will all be off piste. The only bit of climbing will be that path with the telegraph poles which goes up towards Friston Pond from ButchersHole Bottom. After the Tiger, we can all pile onto another no 12 and just like the last time; exercise our individual preferences for what comes next.
Brian, you and I will need to get a day rover bus ticket. Lord Charles, could you please remember the whip purse?
As there will be a certain amount of flexibility needed in all meeting up (Harry off nights for starters, so he might need to be collected from the station) it would be best if everyone came to chez moi (via the stop at Newlands school and the cut through to Harrison Road for the busses and via the twitten by the 7 Sisters for a walking Paco). We'll have to start walking by 11:00 (bus at Newlands @ 10:40) to get a good seat & beat the Old Trouts!, so I suggest getting to mine between 09:15 and 09:30 for drinks and biks.
Matt & Mike! Just look at what you're missing!!!
See you all on Wednesday 21st April
Flip Flop Frog One
ps For those of you who like to see where they are going, you can see the entire walk through Google Maps (Satellite) by typing in Jevington,UK...............

N.E.R.D.S’ Ramble No. 244 - 24/3/10.

Those Present - Sandyballs, Lafayette, Froggy, Captain Haddock, El Paco.

The Pumpton Ramble. (sic)


The weather was dull and shitey threatening rain, no sign of Spring yet, but the NERDS threw all their troubles aside and went to Lewes to breakfast chez Vic in his Greasy Spoon caff on the station. Poor old Vic was in despair ; the railway company were threatening to close him down because his presence was not in accordance with the company ethos. Maybe it was because his coffee was of too high a standard or the fact that he was pleasant to his customers and read poetry to them - who knows? The NERDS were enraged; The Captain spluttered in rage; Sandyballs and Paco tried to get Vic to join their respective unions (laugh out loud); and everone signed Vic’s petition adding that the waitresses could perhaps be sexier and wear shorter skirts and even speak Lithuanian if necessary.

When we were finally chased out of the caff for being flippant we got the train to Plumpton where that day’s ramble was to start. Lafayette had brought along his two way radios that he had bought in case of emergencies and originally to keep his other girly rambling group in order. He handed one to Gold Leader, Sandyballs who quite liked the idea of using it even though Lafayette was only two feet to his right. Still, you really don’t know when a real emergency might take place do you? And someone might spot Philby floating around in a field somewhere.

The ramble proceeded; Froggy and Lafayette discussed why they both needed a bigger size of shoe these days and decided they were victims of ‘Fat Feet Syndrome’. Sandyballs told Lafayette that he really ought to pull his finger out (ugh!) and submit his stool samples to the health centre as required by his doctor. ( There are some disadvantages to being a pensioner and at the mercy of the NHS computer). In the meantime Gold Leader managed to get us all lost.

We found ourselves wandering up some pleasant farmy-type drive in the mud and the rain until some nice horsey lady told us kindly that we were trespassing and she would shoot us in the arse with her shotgun unless we all came in and shagged her and her horse. Although some of us were tempted (a bit) we all turned and fled back up to the main road.where after a bit of dithering about we passed a Marzipan Witch’s House and finally found The Jolly Sportsman pub, which we had actually been aiming for, for a pitstop.

This was a marvellous place. It sold two local beers (both excellent) and about 65 different whiskeys. Fortunately we kept to the beers that day but even so after a while Sandyballs found he couldn’t read the map saying that the symbol for a petrol pump looked like a mobile phone and what did PH mean? (God Almighty everyone knows it means Public House!) and Froggy told us proudly that there were three ‘plubs in Pumpton’ (presumably where you could go clumping of an evening).
We got a delightful barmaid called Laura to take our photo and then Froggy , who was really on form that day,( or just drunk) spotted a notice advertising ‘Pig Baby and Bar Nipples’ and thinking it was dish of the day ordered it from Laura who looked a bit puzzled. Sandyballs had not meant to lunch here but the fact that it was raining outside, we were warm , comfortable and full of beer inside, persuaded most of us we wanted to stay there. That is until we saw the prices on the menu…..

Saddened by the fact they wanted about fifteen quid for fish and chips, we reluctantly dragged ourselves out into the rain and set off for the Half Moon at Pumpton (ha ha!)
Nestled in the Sussex Downs at the joining of two minor roads, the Half Moon is a very pleasant pub which, when we arrived, was devoid of any vieilles truites (or truites vieilles - according to the way you were taught French). In fact it was devoid of anybody except us which is how the NERDS liked it. However it had a roaring fire which gave it the Captain’s vote and the menu seemed more reasonable which gave it Sandy balls’ vote too.

The lunch was excellent (and cheap) and of course it sold Harvey’s so it couldn’t go far wrong. The Captain, now replete, regaled us with tales of how he used to be a
‘fournisseur de chiens’ for the PAF (Police de L’air et des Frontieres for those of you who’ve forgotten). When Lafayette, whose French was excellent, asked if this meant that that Captain had actually been a pimp supplying the PAF with ugly ladies past their sell-by date, he was slapped down by the Captain who told him that he must be barking up the wrong tree.

The under manager was an excellent bloke, friendly and accommodating and we gave his pub the NERDS approved sticker (that is we would have if….). As we were favoured customers he took us into the back room and showed us all the erotic paintings of his regulars. He said if we kept going there we too might join that elusive band and have our portraits done with no clothes on (mental note, must tell Matt ..ed.)
We shall have to have a word with Bob down The Engineer - he doesn’t do any thing as good as this!

So, afterwards we walked back to get the train at Pumpton where we shared the carriage with all those poor people who had had to commute to work that day (lol)
We were grateful that Gold Leader hadn’t made us walk back up the escarpment to Lewes; now that would have sobered us up quicker than anything.

Thanks to Sandyballs for choosing a couple of good pubs and getting us lost once again. It had been a good ramble; lets hope we see both B.T. and Matt on the next one in April.


Remember, Matt, Spring is the time for lurv, so get that posing pouch out!


Lafayette.

The March Ramble 2010

Whilst awaiting the write-up from the scribe here are Froggy's photographs of the edpedition.

Dear Fellow Nerds,

This month's ramble should hopefully be in lovely Spring weather. That time of the year when Nerds hold hands and frolic together amongst the daffodils in sylvan glades....Anyway, the date is Wednesday 24th.

Firstly, you will need a return ticket to Plumpton. Secondly, you can lay in your beds a little longer as the Seaford/ Newhaven contingents will be getting the 10.25/ 10.32 to Lewes where we meet at the Runaway cafe on Platform 2 and then take the 11.18 to Plumpton. Incidentally, you can take the later train from Seaford/ Newhaven and (just) make the onward 11.18 but it would be cutting it rather fine - and you would miss out on the bacon sarnies at Vics.

The reason for the later departure is so that we can take in a quick pint at the Jolly Sportsman in East Chiltington before proceeding to the revamped half Moon pub for lunch. Jolly Sportsman does not open till 12. Over the years I have learnt that there is nothing a Nerd likes more than a pint before having a lot of other pints!

Hope to see you all there.

Sandyballs

February's Ramble

In view of the derth of any photographs appearing from the budding photographers who attended the ramble, here are some I took earlier.

NERDS’ Ramble No. 243 - 24/2/10.

Those Present - Sandyballs, Lafayette, El Paco, Cuddles Crowe.

The Ramble When Most people Were Ill.



As you may guess from the title most of the NERDS were suffering from various lurgies this month. Pride of place went to Froggy who was allegedly producing projectile vomiting from both ends - had to be dramatic didn’t it? Then there was Sandyballs who was snivelling into his handkerchief and taking (pharmecutical) drugs, but at least had the good grace to attend; Matt was having his lavatory rearranged and Bronco, well poor Bronco was always ill - couldn’t walk and couldn’t drink. So to produce a quorum of at least three Lafayette had to go out recruiting.

First off he rang El Paco who for once seemed to be aware that a ramble was actually taking place, then he got hold of Cuddles Crowe from the Islamabad Hash and Grand Imperial Wizard of Her Majesty’s Border Control (Northern France Division). B. T. said he was washing his hair that day and in any case it was a long way to travel.

So, this motley crew rolled up at Lavender Lodge chez Lafayette and having finished off all his calvados immediately began wacking into the Morgans Spiced Rum and choccy biscuits. The day began with Cuddles giving a vitriolic presentation on Brodie Clarke C.B.E. devil incarnate and destroyer of H.M. Immi Border Agency thingy.
The discussion got quite heated and ranty and El Paco and Lafayette sat on the sideline giggling and counting their huge pensions while the other two vented their spleens and their worries.

Finally somebody noticed a glimmer of yellow outside the window and we all dashed outside to take advantage of this unusual weather phenomenom. It was too late by now to ramble over the cliffs to The Badgers’Watch (original plan) so Lafayette led everyone on his favourite route round the back of Parker Pen and past the muddy allotments of Newhaven’s hinterland. Due to the amount of moaning and wingeing about muddy feet from everyone Lafayette wondered if they knew what the first principles of NERDS’ rambling were (apart from no pooftahs and no women) ie. get everybody shitty. Nevertheless we all ploughed on towards the Wetlands and Bird Sanctuary.

It seems to be a well known fact that middle aged men all find TV weather girls very attractive and Cuddles preferred the dusky charms of that Nazaneen to the more mature attractions of that blonde Carole as advocated by Sandyballs and Lafayette.
Again the discussion got heated but in a more pleasant way, and the advantages of Nazaneen’s ample bum were compared to the beaming smile and upper body parts of Miss. Kirkwood. The contest was declared a draw as we wound our way past lots of ducks and things sitting on ponds recently augmented by the winter rains.

Eventually we ended up in The Flying Fish at Denton (as opposed to The Laughing Fish at Isfield) and found to our delight that rumours of the landlady’s sudden demise
(as spread by Sandyballs) were totally false. More to the point, her husband, a French chef, was still alive and cooking. Good job as well because the pub suddenly started to fill up with large parties of real ramblers and the dreaded , dithering Old Trouts so hated by The Frogster.

The pub started to resemble Piccadilly Circus on a Saturday afternoon - lucky that the
Important People (NERDS) had managed to get in relatively early and get their food. This, as might be expected from a French Chef was pretty good, and the beer although somewhat unusual, being either red or green from Shepherd Neame (somewhere in Kent) was definitely OK. However the noise and dithering of the Old Trouts finally got on our nerves so Lafayette took everyone out and back to their comfort zone of chez Bob at The Engineer.

The Engineer has strange opening hours (as we all know) but that day it opened at 3pm which is usually when the NERDS are chucked out of one pub and have nowhere to go. The usual fat barmaid - one of Bob’s offspring - greeted us effusively since we were the only customers, while Sandyballs handed over the whip purse to Lafayette which the latter had tried to abandon in the last pub. (This purse has a mind of its own, it must be said, it empties itself of money when no-one is looking and loses itself in whatever pub we happen to be in).

Anyway, after a few scoops Sandyballs thought it would be a good idea to ring up Mrs Sandyballs, who was teaching round the corner, and invite her to the pub for a drink, thereby scoring himself a lift home.This seemed to work just as El Paco was casting terrible aspersions on the NERDS by saying we should get hold of ski poles to walk properly and take things seriously. What a load of old bollocks. He was told in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to start a splinter group of his own that was fine by us!

Cuddles thought at this stage it might be a wheeze to lure his own wife down to the Engineer to get taken home but he kept getting text messages ordering him to report back sofort to chez Lafayette or the Gestapo would get him. Guiltily he slunk off while Lafayette took El Paco home to sober up before the long trip back to Seaford

It had been an interesting ramble and the weather had given us a little window of sunshine in all the recent winter’s shite. It had been nice to meet up with Cuddles again and we hoped his wife had not beaten him with her rubber truncheon too much. Let’s hope all the regular NERDS stop their projectile vomiting and such like before next time so that we can get back on track.

Los Nierdos Para Siempre!



Lafayette.

February Ramble

Hail fellow Nerds,

As you all must know, the next ramble is set for this Wednesday 24th. Joining instructions are that we meet at the Purple Palace in Meeching Road at about 10 -ish. Many thanks again to Lafayette. The ramble destination depends on several factors - principally the weather. Hey, we may not ramble anywhere - it depends on how the whim takes us. We may just hang around on a Seaford street corner and beat up any Cords members which may pass by!

Another date for your diary. We have provisionally booked the March ramble for Wednesday 24th - same date as this month's. Anybody got any problems with the date ( apart from BT - but who threatens to join us for April)?

When we reach a hostelry I would like to talk seriously about the New Forest ramble in June.

Sandyballs

Valentine's Ramble?

Next Ramble is on the 24th of February meeting in Newhaven. I'm sure the weather will be fine and balmy.

Valentine's Ramble?

Janiary 2010s First Ramble - at last

N.E.R.D.S’ Ramble No 242 - 28/01/10.

The Ramble that Paco forgot.

Those Present - El Paco (Yes, really), Lafayette, Sandyballs, Froggy, Matt,
& Captain Haddock.


This was a rearranged ramble because of snow earlier in the month. The evening before, Lafayette thought it might be a good idea to ring up Paco to make sure he knew what his Nerding responsibilities were. However before he could get a word out Paco launched into an apologetic tirade about how sorry he was to have missed last week’s ramble cos he’d felt a bit poorly and how he promised faithfully to attend the next one - Grovel, grovel. Lafayette observed drily that actually he would have his chance the next day because obviously he’d got his dates muddled up (again).

Anyway, the next day Lafayette was waiting for a train at Newhaven station, amusing himself by reading Racine or something, when all of a sudden he was jerked out of his intellectual revery by the arrival of a scruffy looking individual hiding behind a blondish/greyish beard who looked vaguely familiar. Lafayette’s heart skipped a beat, his copy of French classical literature slid to the floor, “ Aaah,no, the bastard hasn’t come back to haunt me.” he thought, but on taking a closer look it turned out to be The Admiral who was obviously spending his retirement growing facial hair in a vain attempt to resemble his dead Belgian hero .

The Admiral and Lafayette boarded the 10. 35 to meet most of the rest of the NERDS
and travelled to Lewes to be picked up by Herr Generalissimo Routemeister, Sandyballs. The latter took one look at the Admiral, screamed loudly and said “God , you look just like Captain Haddock.” - and so the name stuck.

The NERDS trailed through Lewes, trying to look middle class and respectable (all except Sandyballs who liked to think of himself as being working class even though he did actually live there), and fetched up in ‘ Le Magasin’, a pretentious coffee house in Cliffe High Street. Over lattes and coffee mochas (see, I told you it was pretentious) Froggy told some dubious tale of how Bob at the Engineer used to leer at him and stroke his ‘Mr. Woody’ whenever Froggy walked into the pub. Matt rather liked this idea and resolved to go to see Bob more frequently.

To everyone’s dismay it was found that nobody had brought the whip with them. Everybody vaguely remembered that Lafayette had confiscated it from Froggy at the Christmas ramble when the latter had left the purse in the pub, but Lafayette couldn’t for the life of him remember where he had put it back at home. He fervently hoped he had put it in one of his fabulous Mughal copper pots - the one he usually kept his yellow embark cards in. And so El Paco paid for this round and claimed the money back later.


Finally we got to rambling.The route wended past Tesco’s, along the banks of
The Mighty Ouse in the direction of Hamsey. Underfoot it was muddy, very muddy and Routemeister covered his back against any compensation claims by alleging he had spelt out all the potential hazards in his joining instructions. Nobody took any notice of that but all secretly hoped Sandyballs would be the one to slip off the bank into the river.

Matt said provocatively that his other group never cancelled because of the weather, and Lafayette said that was because they were a lazy bunch of C***S who never actually went outside a pub (and who were aptly named after their stupid trousers.) The mud continued, we slipped and slid and eventually headed for the church at Hamsey where Sandyballs said he wanted to show us something spooky in the churchyard.

Just at this point we met up with a couple of ladies who also liked to get up to nefarious activities in dodgy graveyards. We didn’t get their names (Philby would have certainly done so) but Sandy balls dragged everyone over to some old, mouldering headstone which related how about four members of the same family managed to die in the same year. Either their dad was a serial killer who got fed up with his daughters coming to him for yet more money, lifts, jewellery etc or else they’d all died of starvation unaware that there was a branch of Waitrose not far off.
The ladies were both very impressed with Sandyballs’ conspiracy theories and headed off back to their car.

Some time after, just as the NERDS were heading in the direction of Oafham (sic) and thinking of foaming pints, Lafayette , Paco and Matt stumbled across the two ladies again. The attractive blonde one spontaneously began to tell Lafayette her whole life story - must have thought he had a sympathetic face - that she was a widow, had to look after two teenage boys and somebody’s grandpa, that she didn’t get out much and did he have lady members in his rambling group? Lafayette said that regretfully women only came rarely on NERDS’ rambles and then only in exceptional circumstances. (Like if they were shaggable like her ). Just then the others dragged Lafayette away before lust really took over and Sandyballs accused him of outrageous
pussymongering.“ Nonsense,” said Lafayette, “ Attractive widows need to be encouraged; you never know when you might need one.”

Anyway, on, on to the Chalk Pit Pub where the food and drink was found to be good and where the barmaid explained to us the intricacies of the Lewes Open Toad Playing Championships (yawn). Every body had a go but just succeeded in making an unholy racket in the pub and disturbing all the other diners. We missed Bronco and his large appetite here and wondered what he was getting up to. Plans were hatched for a trip to the New Forest although Matt said he didn’t want to come because he was having an exclusive 70th birthday party for people like Mike Clarke , and of course,the C***S.

Then things began to get a bit vague after most of the NERDS went off home leaving Sandyballs and Lafayette to drink rum and coke and poke the fire in the Lewes Arms.
It had been an eventful ramble and we hoped that Bronco and B.T. could join us in the near future.
So keep on NERDING and death to all other spurious groups. Lafayette.

Rearranged Ramble for January 2010

For the first time in history we were forced to abandon a Ramble because of weather this month. However, nil desperandum, the event has been rearranged to Thursday 28th. same route, same time - so the 10.25 from Seaford,etc. Let us see what the Almighty decides to send us for weather - Religious Advisor to do the needful, please.

We may as well think about the February Ramble. How about Wednesday 24th, for example. Anyone got problems with that?

See you all at Lewes station on 28/1.

Sandyballs

January Ramble posponed

Thw first ramble of the year was cancelled due to inclement weather and Sandyballs's toe. We await with baited breath when it will be reconvened at a date suitable. Is the year 2010 the year Sandyballs's direct catholic line to the creator is terminated or will the weather just improve!

1st Ramble of 2010

First puting for 2010 is on 6.1.2010 and commences from Lewes Station. Read your joing instructions for the full information. Have a super time 'you all' and hopefully you will not get snowed in until after you reach the pub.

The Christmas Ramble 2009

N.E.R.D.S.’ Christmas Ramble, No. 241.

Wednesday 9th December 2009.

Those Present - Lafayette, Sandyballs, Froggy, Muscles Matt, Bronco, B.T.,
The Admiral, & El Paco.


Christmas reunion, the gathering of the NERDS clan - old faces, even older faces and some bloody ugly faces as well. Matt had recently returned from Dublin where it had been so expensive to even look into a tea shop let alone keep up with the high social standards there. The recession hadn’t, however, stopped The Admiral from rolling up in his posh, white BMW only rivalled by Sandyballs who had got himself a brand new Vauxhall Astra by selling Flintoff to child slavers in Morocco. (Doesn’t all that baby sitting just so get on your nerves?). B.T. had made a second sortie back from the Pyrenees where he had left behind his new life of hunting, shooting, fishing and shagging the President’s wife (god, she’s a slapper that Italian bitch), and Paco, well Paco had been forced out by his charming daughter who needed to put the budgie on the clothes line and beat the secondary cigar smoke out of its lungs.

The first dispute began on Berwick station where Lafayette accused Sandyballs of having stolen his yellow and black Rupert Bear scarf some time ago to reintroduce it in a pathetic attempt to rival the bit of green rag which Philby habitually wore round his neck. Sandyballs bristled at being compared sartorially to the lowly Belgian (well, you would, wouldn’t you?) and said huffily that he had always admired Rupert Bear anyway. Froggy assuaged the situation by bringing out his hip flask and thereby turning both Matt and Lafayette into life long fans of Sailor Jerry’s Rum (yum, yum!)

The route led along a cycle path to The Cricketers, a well known Sussex pub famed for its promotion of the game of Toads (Hence the name) and Harvey’s beer. Sandyballs and Lafayette had sussed out this pub during one of the preceding weeks and had both managed to get smashed on Bonfire Boy (No. Matt, not what you’re thinking…it‘s a drink). Today the place seemed to be full of nubile barmaids warming their backsides by the Christmas fire so Froggy tried to impress them by waving his orang- utang teeshirt about and saying it was almost an extinct species. Paco said he was wearing a Che Guevara teeshirt who himself was an extinct species on account of the fact he was dead. B.T.pricked up his ears at this and wondered about investing in a load of teeshirts with Philby on the front…..

Sandyballs whipped everybody outside as time was marching on and the Christmas dinner was waiting. We headed along the Old Coach Road where in days of yore highway men had roamed and virgins had lost their…..I- pods. Today, however , it was just shitty, murky and drizzly. Seasonal presents were discussed. Froggy said he hadn’t had sex for months so he’d bought Mrs. Froggy some stuffing for Christmas. Matt said he should have got her a digital pen for the modern librarian on the go. He’s so thoughtful, isn’t he?

After a lot of… er walking we arrived at the Barley Mow at Selmeston where lunch was to take place. The last time we had been here was absolutely ages ago when the Mystery Guest had been sweet Emma Ryan in a big, daft hat (someone still has the photos somewhere). According to Sandyballs’ researches she has now grown up and is teaching flamenco dancing in Spain in an attempt to regain her language allowance.

Who was today’s Mystery Guest then ? Well funnily enough on entering the Barley Mow we all fell over Bronco who had skived out of the ramble and was sitting there enjoying a pint ; so faute de mieux he was made M.G. Bronco was pissed off that the NERDS had arrived; he had had two girlies, Claire and Madelaine, pandering to his every whim, fetching him drinks, laughing at his tales of winning the Derby and dating Princess Ann, and didn’t want the adoring atmosphere to be disturbed . Bad luck, cock ;the NERDS want their Christmas dinner!

And so we ate …and drank .. A bit and pulled crackers and told jokes and B.T. told us all about his mole problem(!) and how Morgane was and Bronco got golf tees in his cracker which Matt tried to prop up his testicles with and Sandyballs refused to eat any sprouts, as usual and we agreed that the food and the ambience was not as good as at the Pilot at Eastbourne but that the girlies had tried hard.

Eventually kicked out of the pub by Sandyballs cos we had a train to catch, we wandered through some more dank fields and byways until we got back to Berwick station where Froggy discovered he’d lost the French leather purse containing the whip! What a disaster! What incompetence! What a pillock! Froggy was so traumatised by its loss that he threatened to resign from the NERDS. There was a deafening silence until Bronco produced a mangled blue thing from his pocket and asked if this was what he had left behind on the pub table. Order was restored Froggy’s wrists were unslashed and we got on the train to Lewes.

Finally, a parting drink was had at the John Harvey Tavern in Lewes where B.T. was visited by one of his descendants and reluctantly had to hand over her dowry in advance. Still, at least she’s not making babies just yet (everyone has a chance , even old clapped out NERDS like El Paco.) and then, I think, we went home.

It had been a good ramble with a chance to see Old NERDS and those who were busy crumbling under the heavy weight of retirement. Poor old Admiral having to do all that lifeboat stuff at home now! So thanks to Sandyballs and Lafayette for preparing the route and to Froggy for losing the whip. Things can only get better in 2010.

Happy New Year.


Lafayette.

Future Dates

Next "ramble" on the 9th of December - 'A Christmas do'.

NERDS’ Ramble No 240 - 11/11/09.

The Armistice Ramble

Those Present - Paco, Matt, Lafayette, Sandyballs, Froggy, Bronco.


This was to be a Remembrance ramble when the NERDS remembered fallen comrades …..well, there was just one and he had only fallen into bad company. Sadly he was no more and so Froggy (yet again Routemaster) decided we should have two minutes silence at 11 o’clock. The rest of the NERDS thought this was a brilliant idea since if nothing else it would stop Froggy from blethering on about bugger all for a short time.

And so under Froggy’s remarkable tutelage we met at Seaford where even Paco turned up clutching his bus pass for today’s excellent adventure. The idea was to go to Beachy Head (or near there, and not because we were all feeling depressed) and ramble downhill towards Eastbourne. So we got on the bus contemptuously waving our passes in Froggy’s face and scrambled upstairs to get the best seats. By the time Froggy appeared, having actually to have paid for his ticket, it was 11 o’clock. Goody, goody, he couldn’t moan at his parents laxity in making him younger than everyone else at this point. There was a silence but the bus failed to move off. Apparently Froggy had had a word with the driver, appealed to his conscience, given him some sob story about Philby or something and made him delay departing until 11 02 hrs.
The NERDS were all impressed, fancy holding up the Seaford public transport just in memory of some renegade NERD. Respect!

We started walking at the top of Eastbourne cliff. It was pleasantly sunny weather with a good view of the town below. Bronco told Lafayette that he had bought 3 different wax jackets recently in a BOGOF deal. Lafayette pointed out that he had only got 3 jackets instead of 4 but Bronco said they only had 3 different colours (!)
Lafayette couldn’t quite see the logic here but bowed to Bronco’s greater business sense.

Eventually we descended to The Pilot Inn at St. Bedes for lunch, a place known to both Matt and Froggy as serving good food. It was good. There was a wide array of beers and the food was excellent - lamb shanks all round except for Lafayette who had a really superb chicken and leak pie. Sandyballs noted that this was the first time no-one had had chips with their meal, something which grieved him muchly since he couldn’t hoover up the leftovers. Discussion turned to who should be the Christmas Mystery Guest this year, and the most popular choice was ‘that count Neil’ (have I misspelled that?) of S.B who had tried to stitch up Bronco for drink driving. Bronco, being a good Christian said that Neil would be very welcome but that he intended personally to crucify him for his sins.

Then we moved on down towards Eastbourne proper through a parky walky seafronty bit where we discussed the sad (non) affair which had occurred between Philby and one Cathryn Orpin. Paco said she hadn’t used to wear a bra and perhaps this had been her allure; Matt said Froggy didn’t wear a bra but Philby hadn’t gone chasing after him. Anyway it had all happened a long time ago and as usual had ended in tears.

There were lots of wooden benches along this bit of the walk - mostly commemorating dead people - no comment - but we finally found ourselves in The Buccaneer, a seemingly gayish pub which overlooked some cricket ground and where we sat at a round table and continued the discussion about the potential Mystery Guest. Lafayette wanted to get Usain Bolt, his big hero, but thought he might cost too much. Paco wanted to have Susan Doyle but that was vetoed because she was too hairy. Matt wanted to have Ronny Rebeiro but he too was vetoed on the grounds that he would eat too much. Someone did have the temerity to mention that the identity of the MG ought to remain perhaps a mystery until the Christmas Ramble but nobody had thought of that.

Anyway we ended up wandering through respectable Eastbourne (no hoodies here) looking for a bus home. There weren’t any chip shops here -too common, you see -so Sandyballs had to wait until Seaford to sate his jaded appetite.

As Matt said, Froggy had taken us to the edge of Paradise with this ramble, and he had! Maybe we could have half an hour’s silence next time (especially if Baby Flintoff is MG and goes to sleep on Sandyballs’ lap). Next ramble is the Christmas one; Lf and SB are sussing it out around the pubs already.

See you all.

Lafayette.

Just awaiting the write up from Lafayette now!!

November Ramble on the 11th

This went off very well according to Froggy who has taken a few photographs which I will attach soon.
Regards BT

Change of Moderator

As I'm so busy in France at the moment and I cannot be back in the UK until December I have relinquished the overall command of the "Blog" to Froggy, to see how he gets on. Await developments!!

NERDS’ Ramble 239 - 28th Oct. 2009.


Those Present - B.T. Froggy, Bronco, Sandyballs, Matt, Lafayette (& Others)

The Freddie Ramble.

Today Sandyballs couldn’t do the ramble because he had bollocksed up his foot in York. (Something to do with lots of drinking at an ISU Union meeting and being pushed off a pavement by Sean Raggett). And so, in a panic, he had not only thrust the heavy burden of organising the ramble on to Froggy, but had telephoned Interpol in the Pyrenees to have B.T. torn away from his home comforts and despatched to Newhaven to make up the numbers.

Bronco too was with us this day so Froggy decided it might not be a good idea to go up and down the fifty odd hills in Sussex like we usually do for a bit of fun, but to keep it short, keep it sweet and make sure we got to the pub well in time for lunch.
B.T. started to be awkward claiming that he had obtained his presently svelte figure from a daily dose of sprinting up and down the Pyrenee at the bottom of his garden and hadn’t come all this way just to pussyfoot around. So Froggy ignored him and ordered everyone on to the bus from Seaford to East Dean.

Some of us had to pay for this privilege (ha, ha) while the other (bus pass holders) claimed their free Human Rights and rushed upstairs to bag the best seats. When we arrived Froggy saw a couple of girlie ramblers get off the bus at the same time clearly intent on following the NERDS and basking in their fame and sexual attraction. Sadly, Froggy’s poor attempt to capitalise on this groupie opportunity came to nought when they heard him say loudly that he fancied shagging the good looking one but wouldn’t touch her mate with his own worn out bog-brush.

The weather was dull, the sheep had shat all over the fields and there we were tramping after a couple of miffed women who were not only following our route but looked as if they were going to have lunch at the same pub as us. Quel embarras! However Matt livened up the proceedings by letting slip that the Mystery Guest on the Christmas Ramble this year was going to be …..none other than Jordan …Wow!
Visions of this fantastic guest at dinner with everyone hanging off her…..every word
Made us all cheerful again. Then Bronco punctured the balloon(s) by saying he’d heard it was only Ian Jordan and that was only if he could tear himself away from the other numerous office parties he seemed to be heavily involved in.

Within sight of Belle Toute Lighthouse the NERDS descended a Seven Sister and saw to their dismay that The Birling Gap ie. the pub lunch rendezvous, was besieged by large numbers of caravans, cameras, gophers, and film stars themselves threatening to try to eclipse the NERDS by making a film where we were going to be eating (and drinking). When we got to the pub someone said that these NERDS’ hangers on were supposedly filming a remake of Brighton Rock so Matt suggested we all do our own film in opposition using ourselves , all the barmaids in the pub , the pub dog and some special posing pouches he just happened to have with him. His offer was declined.

Apparently all these famous acting types, the ones in this stupid film outside, had brought all their own scoff, all their own posing pouches, all their own catamites and even all their own lavatory paper with them in order not to have to mix with the local hoi polloi and the world famous NERDS. The Birling Gap, however had made an absolute fortune by renting out its pub car park to them for the duration so at least they would have a good view of the world famous NERDS dining in all their charisma.

The food was very good here and so was the drink - all NERDS approved - and Lafayette tried out his fluent Hungarian on the petite barmaid, called Melinda before telephoning Sandyballs at home to update him on all the exciting developments at the pub. (I mean about all the great food and drink he was missing because he was rolling aroung groaning about some ingrown toenail or something - not about the poncy film crew type people who were falling over themselves to offer us key parts in their crummy film). Sandyballs murmured something vague about coming along with all the family, and that it was not in contravention of NERDS’ Rules because they hadn’t actually rambled with us and they had paid their NERDS’ subscription and they couldn’t leave the baby at home anyway, could they? ……….. Baby, wot baby?

And so Sandyballs eventually turned up with Mrs Sandyballs, daughter Sandyballs and Baby Freddie ( now known by his NERDS’ name as Flintoff). Flintoff was very cutchy coo and very well behaved, he drank his Harveys like a good boy and said that his mom had liked being Mystery Guest last year but didn’t fancy being on the same table as that slut Jordan this year. He said that his grandma was very beautiful and that he loved her very much as long as she was going to leave him all her diamonds and things. He said also that his grandpa was a big nesh pillock who kept falling off his bike and getting his gouty feet stamped on because he drank too much, then he smiled,
said he liked Lafayette best of all the NERDS and went to sleep. We were all entranced at our new mini NERD.

After the Sandyballs family had taken Baby Flintoff back home we set off back along the road to find out why The Tiger at East Dean was closed to the NERDS that day. On the way we were passed by Hungarian barmaids - big and small, and took lots of rests so that Froggy as Routemaster wouldn’t get lost (or tired). Matt led us to The Tiger and found out it was reopening the next day (Just our luck!) Then we all got on the free (oops) bus back to Seaford and Newhaven.

It had been a very pleasant ramble thanks to the excellent guidance of Froggy and to the surprise appearance of Baby Flintoff who may take over as Managing Director of the NERDS one day. Let’s hope Sandyballs’ feet sort themselves out soon and that B.T. gets back safely to his Pyrenee in France.

Goo goo to all.

Lafayette.

Bad Trains Ramble

THE N.E.R.D.S. - Ramble No 238.

Wed. 24th September 2009.

Those Present - Sandyballs, Lafayette, Froggy, Bronco, Paco, Matt.

The Bad Trains Ramble

Amazingly enough, El Paco had turned up for this ramble. This, it has to be said, was only as a result of Lafayette making sure the appointment was in Paco’s diary, then ringing him up every few hours to ensure he hadn’t forgotten, and finally sleeping on his very doorstep and banging on his front door at 6 am to ensure he got up and got moving. Never had so much effort been made since someone had once tried to prise Philby out of a Dieppe bar to work his way back on a crossing. (Poor Philby - requiescat and all that)

Paco was accompanied on the train from Seaford not only by various professional NERDS who always get up for their rambles but by his delightful daughter, Lara, who Lafayette thought might have been standing in as Paco’s NERD’S handmaiden ie. to
whip him around the course and to keep him from falling asleep. Sadly she was only going off to college to better herself and stop her falling into the job trap of becoming an I.O. when she grew up.

However, whilst waiting at Lewes for the train to The South Coast, Lafayette went to pay for his coffee in Vick’s caff and was treated to a rendition of a selection of Vick’s awful poems. Apparently, late in life, Vick must have found a woman close to his heart and had started writing love crap to her to try and get into her knickers. Does all this sound a touch familiar? It might do when I mention that the famous poet Philby thought he was a friend of Vick’s and because of the similarity of his name to one of Philby’s wannabe lovers may just have bored Vick with outpourings of his own unrequited love. (Poor Philby, requiescat and all that again).

Lafayette sighed and wished that true love would sod off and die somewhere. Rambles were what was important, and getting to the start of them (on the same day) was fairly important. Sadly things do not always go strictly to plan…..

The NERDS boarded the right train (phew!) and planned to get off at Norman’s Bay. Unfortunately since we were not in the first 3 coaches, and since the guard never thought to come and tell us personally, we couldn’t get out where Sandyballs had planned and were whisked off to Cooden Beach instead. O Desastre! O Quelle Fatalite! We were lost already and we hadn’t really gone a step. Luckily Sandyballs is a master of innovation and flexibility so instead of weeping or writing poetry or panicking, he just calmly announced that he would re-arrange things and that we should go for a drink while he thought things out.

And so we spent a very pleasant hour or so lounging around the sunny exterior of
The Cooden Beach Hotel sitting at a beach table and pissing off the residents with our loud, boorish conversation. Matt complained first of all that he couldn’t see the sea, but shut up when he was told he could actually go home to Seaford to do that. Paco said he was more than qualified to be the new leader of the Liberal Democrats because he had shagged more women in his youth than the present incumbent. Lafayette pointed out you were also supposed to be somewhat right wing and wear lots of orange to achieve such high office. Matt then said he was disappointed that the Engineer (pub) hadn’t started off its Nudist Evenings, as (allegedly) promised by Bob (landlord). Bronco mumbled something about such things not being compatible with both NERDS’morality and the current wild darts evenings - for obvious reasons. As you can see, the conversation was starting to go downhill so Sandyballs decided to be flexible and innovative and make us ramble.

We hiked along the coast road picking blackberries and sloes as we went. Most of these had already been poisoned by the passing traffic but why should we care; a good bottle of gin would soon sort that out. Sandyballs kept ringing up Simon, a Mystery Guest he had been begging for weeks to come along, but she said she was washing her (red) hair that day and couldn’t come. So we trudged Mystery Guestless along country roads until we arrived at The Star Inn Carvery at er.. Normans Bay.

We bagged our usual round table (not that Sandyballs even remotely resembles King Arthur) and queued up at the bar and the carvery. The staff that day seemed to consist of a couple of Romanians and one put upon African who obviously failed to suspect our true professions (well those of some of us at any rate). The food was ample, good and cheapish, and the beer was OK so what more could we want? Well, Paco did rather hope he might get served before going home time that day, you see he’d ordered the huge gut buster, mixed grill, all day mega meal to try to rival Bronco in the race to be nominated as Greediest NERDS Bastard Of The Year. When this finally arrived Paco suddenly found a lessening of appetite (something to do with eyes being bigger than stomachs), however he was helped out by his half starved colleagues and the food did not go to waste.

Eventually moving outside again to take our digetifs - gin, tonic and no filthy sloes this time, we sat at a pleasant table and listened to Paco (him again) expounding on the History of The Labour Party and Ramsay MacDonald - and you all thought he had pretensions to be a right wing Lib Dem, ha, ha. It was now that due to an excess in heavy puddings that Sandyballs thought we should all go for a post prandial ramblette to visit some lost village or something. So off we went across some pleasant fields in the late afternoon sun and never found this village cos it was lost - see. But an inspiring bit of exercise none the less.

So then we made our way to the railway station to get the 16. 40 train (all carefully organised, you see) but as we rounded the last corner we saw our train spitefully draw out of the station leaving the NERDS foaming and ranting in the middle of the road.
What was going on? Sandyballs had carefully calculated everything so that we should be home well in time for Countdown and now this! Apparently some selfish person had done the usual and hurled himself off a bridge just because his wife didn’t understand him any more (boring cow) and all the trains were delayed.
Well, as it was still a pleasant, sunny afternoon we hung around the station for about half an hour talking bike bollocks to a cyclist who had likewise been affected by today’s domestic drama in Hastings or wherever, and then got on to the next train purporting to be heading homewards. But, of course, it didn’t. For some reason it went only to Eastbourne. Why? Why? Why? We were never to find out.

So cursing the pitiful railway system of Sussex most of us took the bus back to go home and watch Countdown. The rambles had been OK thanks to Sandyballs and his ingenuity, and the weather had been glorious for September. Lafayette thought he would leave Froggy alone in this write-up since he had a different NERD to write about this month and six NERDS all together at the same time was something of a rarity these days.

Perhaps we should all have gone to visit Philby that day and read poetry to him - but on second thoughts I’m sure he would have understood our compelling desire to go off and booze in a pub (or two) somewhere.

Life is short. Get Nerding.



Lafayette.

THE N.E.R.D.S. Rambles 235 & 236.

Ramble No. 235

Those present - Froggy, Sandyballs, Lafayette, Paco, Bronco and Dumpling Dwyer.

The Bramble Ramble.

Wednesday 10th June 2009.


This was a ramble which Mr and Mrs Sandyballs had sussed out some time previously when the weather had been nice and the grass had been short. Not today, though.
The weather was dull and the grass was l-o-n-g, and guess what, we nearly got lost.

Two cars took us to Barkham for the start. We even had Bronco with us since all the
watch shops were closed, and Paco had come along thinking that he was on a late shift. Sandyballs led off over some fields but soon got a bit confused and had to ask the way from a Grim Reaper who was titting about weeding her cabbage patch.

Eventually we righted ourselves and made off towards the top of a bridge up a slippery slope over a disused railway line. Everybody had great fun ascending the slippery slope, not, I hasten to say because we were all aged, infirm, pissed, or incompetent, but simply because it was a bit slippery. Once on top of the track we realised that nobody had walked along here for at least a hundred years ( apart from
La Famille Sandyballs ) and that’s why the track resembled an impenetrable jungle.

Sandyballs led us through brambles (see ramble title), nettles, wetness, shite, frogspawn, and other unmentionable nasty things until we packed in all this adventuring and felt safer wandering through a field where a bull was guarding his harem from unwelcome NERDS’ attentions.

Finally we got to The Royal Oak where we sat outside under a sort of canopy in the drizzle and where Lafayette got a text from B.T. who was in France and missing the NERDY chaffish banter he had so loved. Dumpling too was within a short time of retiring having bankrupted the Foreign Office with his mega lump sum, and was considering a part time job as a sandwich runner for the I.O.s at Newhaven. Sadly, times had become hard and all the Newhaven budget had been ring fenced to keep
The Engineer from packing up. So no more cushy jobs.

Paco and Froggy opened up a smokers’ corner at the end of the table and Lafayette decided he would try eating a posset for dessert. Not many people know this, but these are small, somewhat effeminate but rather shy, furry mammals which make excellent eating in the appropriate culling season, and which, mixed with custard, taste rather like slightly demented seagull chicks. Anyway Lafayette was certainly enjoying his until the landlady noticed her mistake and came and swapped it for a somewhat more boring tarte aux pommes.

Lafayette’s notes here record that he got mud on Sandyballs’ jeans, (so what?), that Froggy reckoned he dribbles pee in his boxer shorts and that Paco had become smitten with Susan Doyle (the famous Scottish page 3 pin-up girl) - so no accounting for taste.

Lafayette couldn’t think of anything more to say about this day’s mayhem, besides, he was eager to start next month’s write-up, the notes for which were now fresher in his mind ……and so here is…….

Ramble No. 236 called imaginatively “ The Ramble which Froggy set.”

and which related what happened to:

Froggy, Lafayette, Sandyballs, B.T, Matt, and Dumpling (again).


Today the weather was okayish and B.T. had flown back from France especially to take part in the chaffish NERDY banter which he had been missing (see elsewhere).
Dumpling had also turned up because he’d heard there was money to be made from listening to how B.T. had invested all his own money in gilt edged Algerian shares.
So, two born every minute, and let’s get on with the ramble.

After Lafayette had managed to dislodge said Dumpling from his house phone where he had been on to his agent to put in a bid for The Engineer, they were both picked up by B.T. in his brand spanking new, top of the range, Volvo which had been paid for out of his lump sum. Next, on to Newhaven International to collect Sandyballs and whisk everyone off to Froggy’s for an aperitif.

Froggy had been up for the last three days and three nights, with no sleep whatsoever, cooking, cleaning, hoovering, chasing out all the cockroaches, installing girlies on poles and generally making the place respectable enough to host the NERDS.
(You don’t get this level of service at Cords meetings, you know). Anyway, he had mown the lawn, chucked out all the dwarves that looked like Philby, (sensitive, you see) and got us all installed in the garden with lots of food and drink so that we could be bribed into attending one of his rambles.

We were joined by Matt, The Holey One, who seemed in good form after his recent operation , and while we sat in the garden debating whether to eat the biscuits and go home, or eat the biscuits and go on a ramble, or just eat the biscuits, Matt told us that Nobby Clarke was now his new best friend and they were both hoping to become ordained as cardinals together and go to Rome. Lafayette looked at the calvados he had been drinking, wondered whether it was really making him go mad and hastily suggested we got off our fat arses and go walking.

Well, the route was out of the back end of Seaford, across some fields, get a bit lost, carry on a bit more, get a bit more lost, scratch Froggy’s head, go left, no, go right, up a long, long hill, oh God, this is steep, are we nearly there yet? Down a gully, I thought there were some cows here, they were on the left last time I came, I think this is right, now I’m not so sure but we’re all having a good time, aren’t we? Silence.

Finally our ultimate destination of Alfriston saved us from utter starvation. In The Smugglers we joined the orderly queue of Old Farts, tourists, mothers, mother’s children, mother’s sister’s children, people who had forgotten to get a bag of crisps and came back into the queue to ask their sister to get one for them, people who couldn’t quite make up their minds whether to have chips with their burger and do you only do childrens’ portions on Tuesday and stop tugging at my skirt, Annabel or I shall get cross….. The NERDS waited and waited and waited.

Finally when the sun had been round and set at least twice we got paid some attention.
Surliness? You’ve never seen surliness like this, mind you, the pub had only put one member of bar staff on at a busy lunchtime so we couldn’t really expect to be served on the same day. It wasn’t like the last time we had come here either. No friendly barmaid from Poland with big tits came to ask us if the food was OK (it wasn’t).
Everyone seemed harassed and in a rush.

We decamped across the road to The George which turned out to be a much nicer pub with multiple barmaids, good beer and fast service. Sat in its pleasant garden B.T. was eyeing up the thirteen year old serving wench, and Matt was telling Sandyballs that
webwashing was a mortal sin (does he mean looking at rude Czech girlies with what look like sticks of celery in their mouths?)

Froggy wanted an icecream so he went across the road and embarrassed the nice refined lady behind the counter by telling her he was a loony and could she hurry up, please, because he had to take his room mates back to the asylum (It’s been done before) Then he “entertained” the bus queue by telling them he was a famous author and offering to read extracts from his latest book to them.

He got back to Seaford more or less in one piece and led us into The Shore (pub) for a final comfy sofa drink or two. Then we went back to his place for tea and our presence provided his wife with yet further grounds for divorcing him because she couldn’t begin to cook her dinner.

But…..it had been a good ramble and a noble effort from Froggy so thanks to him for the day out. We will remember never to go to The Smugglers ever again and hope that The George long remains the good pub we had found it to be.



Lafayette.

Photos of the last ramble now published (from France with intermittant internet) but no write-up from Lafayette yet. I will remaind him.

BT

YO Nerds, As you know, our next expedition is on Wednesday 10th June. A short, level stroll around the village of Barcombe. Hopefully Bronco can join us (with or without Crunchie). Matt , we hope can walk with us if he is fit. BT may be in France buying vast tracks of land. Can Bronco , BT and Matt let me know if they are going to make it? The Royal Oak does not open till 12 noon so a slightly later train from Seaford Central at 10.25 - Newhaven Town at 10.32. I will meet Frog and Lafayette ( and Matt?) at Lewes at 10.45 in my green machine. Then drive to pick up Bronco at Ringmer (BT at his place?) then drive to Barcombe to start the ramble. One thing to mention. Even if the weather is hot and sultry as is now, I would not recommend the wearing of shorts - unless you combine this with the carrying of a machete. As for the July ramble, Frog and are looking at Wednesday 29th. Hope you can make it. Please let me know if any problems. Request in for myself, Frog and Bronco. Lafayette. Thanks for sending the write-ups . Unfortunately I could not open the attatchment - neither could Frog. Lafayette may have pressed the wrong buttons. Can you try again? See at least some of you next Wednesday. Sandyballs

April's and May's Ramble at last

THE N.E.R.D.S. Rambles 233 & 234.

Ramble No. 233

Those present - Froggy, Sandyballs, Matt, Lafayette, B.T.


The Hamish Findlay Ramble.

Wednesday 15th April 2009.


The reason for this title will be seen towards the end of the write-up. Anyway, Froggy picked us up at Seaford station and we all went off to Matt’s for pre-ramble refreshment. Seated in his posh, well kept garden we all idly mused about why his bird table had nasty, wicked spikes around it - presumably to prevent any birds from gathering there to feed!! Another Nerds’ mystery indeed. Meanwhile B.T. played at being a paparazzo and danced around the table taking photos for posterity ( just like the last 20 years of photos were, ha, ha ). Lafayette’s notes record that Froggy had decided to come out that year and was asking Matt advice about golf (Maybe the notes had got a little confused here), however Matt replied by giving Froggy his tip of the week ie. how to use a safety pin to repair a bust trouser zip. (Very confused notes!).
Apparently Sally had told Froggy that the Nerds mustn’t see their front garden because it was unfinished (Were we going to hold a fete here or something?)and then Matt walzed out into the garden wearing a teeshirt featuring Elton John and Keith Alan, and said he was going to leave all his money to The Catholic Boys Non Buggering Society. (Why??)

So, after all this surrealism Sandyballs decided that it was time to ramble and dragged us out through twitterns and all around bourgeois Seaford towards The Golden Galleon to get lunch. Along the way Matt had a stroke of luck spotting a £20 note on the ground which Lafayette pointed out to him . Then began a long agonising period of Catholic guilt of what to do with this windfall. Lafayette suggested that he spend it on drink but Matt wanted to change the world and donate it to all the abused in Ireland. Lafayette said they’d all been abused because of drink anyway and he might as well make a few Nerds happy without all this guilt bollocks. (You can guess that Lafayette had been brought up as a Protestant) so Matt was finally persuaded to spend it in the pub after deciding to make a small contribution to Our Lady of Abstinence in the next Catholic church he came across. (In the event Froggy claimed some two weeks later that he had lost £20, but we all thought this was a bit Jesuitical and turned down his appeal).

On, on to the Golden Galleon where Bronco was supposed to meet us but wasn’t there and Froggy couldn’t raise him by phone. Maybe he’d forgotten it was Nerds’ ramble day (grounds for excommunication) or maybe he’d got thrown off his horse again -whatever, he just failed to turn up. So to console ourselves we settled down and tried to pack ourselves full of calories. (Lafayette has to put his hands up at this point - confused notes - and say that it was actually Froggy’s ramble that day and we were supposed to go as far as the Plough and Harrow in Jevington. However due to all the Catholic Guilt Time Wasting earlier on it was decided to stay at the Golden Galleon).

It was nice and sunny sitting outside the pub even though there was a ferocious wind blowing up from the sea. The meal was served by cute girlies who titillated our hormones and Froggy got so horny he waved his nipples in the air (at Matt’s instigation) and treated us to a sight of his dorsal lump - some sort of mating ritual, apparently. Sandyballs mentioned he was going to put his future (putative) grandson down for entry to the Nerds as there was such a long waiting list to get in (we need some new blood, everybody else is either dead, dying or gone crook).

Then a pleasant walk back along the cliffs where we got caught having a piss in the bushes by real ramblers and where there weren’t any more suspicious £20 notes to pick up. (No more miracles; Lafayette blamed The Catholics and vowed to start his own Bonfire Society in Lewes).

Descending from the cliffs to the beach someone mentioned that Philby had once owned some crappy old beach hut in the environs which was now putrefactious and full of empty red wine bottles. So in the hope of finding it and possibly of discovering an overlooked full bottle we wandered along the front and came across a dazzlingly well looked after beach hut in the possession of none other than one time drunken shagger, Hamish Findlay! How nice it was to see him and didn’t he look well! Well I suppose you would for one who had managed to retire from a non job at Newhaven at the tender age of about 40. (just jealous, that’s all).

Hamish looked the picture of health despite actually not being all that well, and had a tan which made him look as if he had just got back from Barbados. He denied this, of course, and reckoned it was just the effect of lounging around outside his beach hut, drinking tea and luring ladies inside for his entertainment. He treated all the Nerds to tea and biscuits and we all caught up on a lot of history together. Sadly, a lot of women kept coming up looking impatiently at the Nerds so we decided to leave Hamish to his pleasures and clear off. Nice to see him again, though.

And so the ramble fizzled out somewhere outside the Wellington at Seaford. It had been a pleasant, sunny day and we had seen an old friend. Lafayette now has to get his second set of notes in order to record The Nasty Steep, Steep Ramble which took place the following month in the environs of Lewes.



Lafayette.


Ramble No. 234

Those present - Froggy, Sandyballs, Lafayette, B.T, Bronco, Julian, Andy and Rupert Thomas and Tony (who?)


The Really, Really Steep Ramble.

Tuesday 12th May 2009.

Sandyballs in charge again this month. It was the occasion of the last week of employment of Fat Peter, landlord of the Trevor Arms at Firle, and the Nerds (and others) were going to show their appreciation of his past services by attempting to drink his pub dry before the next landlord could take up residency.

Sandyballs had engaged the services of two native sherpas - Jules (Chinky) Thomas and Andy (Rimbaud ) Thomas, both of whom were indefatigable patrons of the Trevor. They had brought along Rupert (Mounty) Thomas - yet another brother, someone called Tony who was along for the ride.

The ramble began inauspiciously by the Thomas Bros leading the Nerds out of Lewes and up, up that steep hill that goes up to the golf course. The Nerds had had experience of this before when Bronco had decided that his future Nerd’s career was to be spent on even surfaces or else in the warmth and relative safety of any bar in a pub the Nerds happened to be visiting. Briefly then, the hill was steep. But worse, much worse was to come.

After getting up to the golf course the Nerds stopped to pant and recount. Nobody had died yet. Lafayette strode off with Mounty Thomas who was telling him about the book he had written about er… mounties. Lafayette was impressed, it wasn’t often he met two famous authors in a week. This Thomas brother despite being somewhat rotund, was obviously very fit (cycling, you see) and led Lafayette panting and gasping far ahead of the main band.


Lafayette must then have had a little sleep because when he awoke he was at the bottom of The Hill of Despair which Chinky Thomas told him gleefully was awfully steep. And, God , he wasn’t wrong Everyone ground their way upwards and upwards and upwards. The bloody hill went on forever with no let up . Lafayette wished he’d done a bit more cycling to keep fit but it was too late now. On, on he went until turning round to throw up on a sheep turd he spied a solitary figure way, way at the back of the group in worse difficulties than himself. It was poor B.T. who everyone had forgotten about so busy had they been gassing to each other (or puking like Lafayette). B.T. was obviously suffering the effects of his frequent trips to France and his excursions into French cuisine which had made him into a bit of a porky worky.
Slowly he managed to make his way up the hill until he and Lafayette lay panting together and cursing the Brothers Thomas who were inflicting this torture on them both.But eventually they recovered and followed the others down the pleasant green slope into Firle village where the Trevor Arms lay.

And there was Fat Peter, as rotund as ever and in his usual welcoming mood. He had clearly seen what a state B.T. and Lafayette were in so he gave everyone a free drink which endeared us to him even more. After a few more drinks and a suitable period of recovery, B.T. came up with the money spinning idea of producing a Nerds nude calendar ( what an original idea!) . Lafayette said he didn’t mind as long as Morgane was the photographer and took off her clothes too, but B.T.was unfortunately having none of that. Froggy said he quite liked the idea of someone making him famous by photographing his lump, and it might even enable him to get a contract with Heat Magazine. B.T didn’t seem too keen on this idea either. But just then Bronco arrived.

Now these days Bronco doesn’t walk a lot - something to do with his corns or something, but he can smell when a drink is going a mile off. Of course he is very well known by everybody in the Trevor and was suitably greeted. Sandyballs had suddenly spotted a couple of old friends who had coincidentally arrived at the same time for lunch. Twas Deaf Dog Mike and his wife, La Diva Daphne who had travelled from Eastbourne after paying homage at the grave of The Deaf Dog (now deceased).

Lunch was up to the usual high standard of the Trevor although unfortunately the first bottle of wine wasn’t. This bottle of Merlot tasted somewhat like camel piss so Lafayette took advice from Mine Host, Fat Pete, and obtained a much better bottle of Corbieres which cleared the palate and helped the cheese course go down. Bronco was meantime making up for lost time in the huge T bone steak department and B.T. was discussing black nail polish with the barmaid. Sandyballs decided that the shirt he was wearing that day qualified him to join The Cords, a renegade group of Frumpies who regularly met round at Matt’s to discuss the finer points of Catholic dogma. Lafayette solemnly reminded him that not only was he a lapsee but if he persisted with this bad idea he might well become a victim of Lafayette’s Lewes Bonfire Society purges.

And so we bid a tearful farewell to Fat Peter, he’d really been a friendly landlord in all the years we’d been going to the Trevor. Then we got on a train and tried to avoid paying for our tickets back to Lewes -in vain again. Sandyballs asked B.T. how many kilobites from Toulouse his camera was living and then realised he was thinking in at least two parallel universes and mercifully shut up.

So ended the Really, Really Steep Ramble, and may the Brothers Thomas be cursed for inflicting that hill on us. Just because they sprint over the Downs everyday for their aperitifs doesn’t mean we all have to. Anyway, cheers be to Fat Pete and may he thrive forever.


Lafayette.

May 2009 Ramble

Well - here we are,half way through May and still no April ramble write-up let alone May's. However, Lafayette is still in France - cycling no less - so here are a few photographs to keep you going.

Just as a matter of interest, to me anyway, my 32 year old Minolta camera finally died this ramble but I have an alternative, still film though, and another digital one soon to be put to good use.