October Joining Instructions

This month we walk on THURSDAY 30th. Also this month we revisit an old favourite ramble - how many times have you heard that in the joining instructions? Oh, come on - it was a brand new ramble in September, wasn't it?

So we are going back to the Cooden beach/ Normans Bay area and lunch at The Star Inn - famous for its sumptuous roast carvery.

A shortish, flat ramble. What more could you want?

Seaford types should take the 09.55 from Seaford Central clutching a day return ticket to Cooden Beach. At Lewes cross to Platform 1 where I will meet you. The train leaves at 10.23 and there is a change at Hampden Park.

Looks like we will be a small select bunch this time. No Paco, who is slaving away at Gatwick.No Matt, who is doing something else. Can somebody contact Clarkie, as I don't have his email address? Also, what about Shirley? She of course will NOT be allowed to ramble!

See you on the day.

SandyBalls

September 2014 Ramble

NERDS' Ramble No. 298 - 26^th Sept. 2014.

Those Present – Lafayette, Froggy, Sandyballs, Matt, The Bish, Curly Clarke.

The Bramble Ramble.

First of all an important announcement to all NERDS. It will soon be (numerically speaking) the 300^th ramble. Since, however,  Lafayette failed to notice this in good time to enable everyone to organise the mass celebrations which are obviously appropriate for this huge event, the NERDS steering committee has made the following decision. October's and November's rambles will be respectively nos. 299 and 301. Ramble No. 300 will be held next May when everyone has had time to consider the gravity of the occasion and been able to agree on a venue. Sorry, B.T. Your suggestion of Marrakesh was shot down in flames. The other NERDS didn't like the idea of provoking ISIL by having a big piss-up in a muslim country however cheap the Easyjet tickets might be. (Nice try, though!)

Anyway, on to ramble 298. There was an exceptional attendance today with the Bish and Curly Clarke both gracing us with their presences. Paco was still making his ambitious climb up the Border Control career greasy pole at Gatwick. We hope to hear that he will soon be in over-all contol and ridding the country of absolutely every single illegal immigrant who ever dared show his filthy face..... rant, rant  don't get me started. Anyway Paco wasn't with us that day.

Sandyballs has got us a new route beginning at Cooksbridge,

but first we had to meet S.B. at Lewes to know where we were going.

Everybody put on baseball caps to greet (and confuse) him. The signs were ominous when we saw he'd got an ordnance survey map with him. How far were we going then? No matter, the weather, albeit overcast, was warm and the countryside round there was very pleasant and er.. pastoral so we set off optimistically.

First of all we got lost a bit in a field then got our bearings somewhere in the vicinity of  Hamsey Manor (Very poshe and just Lafayette's style).

Then the Bish started collecting conkers until we got to a field with a couple of rams in it who were obviously worried we had designs on their sheep until Froggy assured them in welsh that we hadn't.

Matt, meanwhile was dancing around announcing it was “ Touch a Tit “ Day and trying to tweak everyone's nipples. ( Ah, yes, we do have lots of fun on NERDS' rambles.) And after all this excitement we tried to cross a small bridge into another field and got hopelessly enmeshed in brambles (hence the name of the ramble this month)[ not to be confused with the 2009 July Bramble Ramble]. So many fantastic events we were nearly dying of excitement by this stage.

Shortly after we went into a bit of a wood in the vain hope we might just discover the missing girls which Boko Haram had abducted – but it appeared they hadn't yet got as far as East Sussex so no black mistresses for us that day. On, on to a remarkable church

(Our Lady of the Touchy Tits) which had a very interesting pool infront of it where Our Lady used to drown witches whenever she got pissed off at people trying to touch her tits. Matt thought he would chance his arm (or finger) at this since it was his special day (T.a.T. Day) but was met at the front door by our Lady herself who tried to lure him in with promises of coffee and sex, and with the obvious intention of converting him into a Protestant. Matt sensibly fled while the rest of the NERDS thought he ought to have stayed with the sex he knew (the right handed sort) rather than mix up his religious fantasies like this.Yes, Matt, I know, that your solicitor is currently looking for work.

We walked down the lane from the church and Lafayette had his photo taken in what looked like a large African hut

at the side of the road, (Lagos House). 'No Boko Haram girls in there,' he reported disappointedly; 'Our Lady up the road must have drowned them all as witches in a fit of pique.'

At this point Froggy and Curly were comparing their Burger House shirts which were identical except that Froggy was complaining that Curly had been using him as  a sartorial role model and was trying to dress exactly as he did (as if Curly gave a toss). Meanwhile Sandyballs took off his jacket and revealed his own Gay Cyclists tee shirt which had a much more elaborate pattern and put Froggy's dull black tee shirt quite to shame.

Eventually we reached Barkham Cross where the Royal Oak beckoned and so we all went in.

Not a bad pub where we all sat outside in the pleasant garden and stuffed ourselves. The food and drink were excellent – most of us had lamb and then pudding and then wine and then cheese boards and then more wine until we were replete.

Lafayette went inside to fill up the glasses and noticed a poor, old, scrawny cat drinking water out of a dog's bowl and bouncing off the furniture. In answer to his enquiry, the landlord said proudly, “ We're twinned with some pub up in Shropshire that had a strange dog who kept coming in and colliding with the furniture, so now we've got our own Gatto Ciego who does the same. He's quite sweet really but unfortunately the mice run rings round him. Lafayette was impressed.

After lunch we did some more exciting walking through pleasant fields etc and got really lost once again although S.B. saved us once again with his map.

Eventually we reached the Rainbow at Cooksbridge where we sat in their “Secret Garden”

and drank some more and where Froggy told us a tale about a man who had had a terrible accident and had then had experienced multiple orgasms all day long.

Most of the NERDS couldn't work out whether this was a good thing or a bad thing, but at least it got rid of the boring need to talk to women and buy them presents etc. so maybe it had its advantages .

Down the road we went to get the train back from Cooksbridge, but desastre!

The 16 20 failed to stop leaving us stranded at least two miles from Lewes!

So we just waited for the next train (there were two an hour) and chatted and sobered up a bit – but not too much 'cos we were enjoying ourselves.

Back at Lewes everyone except Matt  and The Bish piled into The Lansdowne Arms and Curly introduced us all to a new drink – Black sambuca – which he'd encountered during his many travels.

Lafayette took to this quite quickly but was a bit wary that its colour might unleash some sort of magic and give him multiple orgasms for ever, especially when the young, pretty barmaid looked at him cutely and asked him if he was pre-loading before a big night out. “No thanks,” said Lafayette, “ Too much effort at my age; I prefer playing bowls and polishing my airguns.” The barmaid had the grace to look disappointed.

So another good ramble. Something new and different for which thanks go to Sandyballs. Remember the juggling of the numbers with the next couple of rambles and after Christmas we shall probably go somewhere exciting for the 300^th, Incha' Allah, as they say in christian countries. Lafayette thought he'd get Matt to consult Our Lady of the Touchy Tits in Cooksbridge for inspiration. After all he's a good Catholic boy and she might well tell him where to go.

That's all for now.

Lafayette.

September Joining Instructions

 Fellow Nerds,

After missing a couple of rambles in the summer I am back in charge of routemastering duties. I recommence with a BRAND NEW RAMBLE (well, sort of). [Bramble?] Unusually we walk on FRIDAY 26th. Details as follows:

You will need a return ticket to Cooksbridge and take the 09.58 from Seaford. When you get to Lewes go IMMEDIATELY  to Platform 2 where I will meet you. We take the 10.19 to Cooksbridge. Lunch is at a MYSTERY DESTINATION.

What could possibly go wrong?

Sandyballs
(Sorry about all the CAPITAL letters again)

NERDS' Ramble No. 297 - 4^th August 2014.

Those Present – Froggy, Matt, Lafayette.

The Maize maze Ramble.

 Sandyballs had delegated this ramble to Lafayette because he was moving his daughter into a house nearer him ( spot the deliberate mistake here). Lafayette had delegated the business to Froggy since he'd done last month's and was so, so exhausted, so Froggy had come up with a wizzo route to Upper Dicker. Pity about the turn out, though. Everybody must have suffered sun stroke from last month or something. Oh well, three's a quorum – or a crowd depending on how you looked at it.

On the train to Lewes Matt happened to drop out that he'd been to Goodwood recently and made a five pound bet – on a horse.Wow!

Such is the high level of excitement in the everyday life of the NERDS. Did he win? We never found out; but just going there and smelling the money had been enough to turn Matt on. Hoping to get a drink out of him Froggy and Laf. manoeuvred him into Vic's on the platform for a cognac but none there was to be found. “No, cognac's off,” spat the ginger dwarf in response to our pleas. “ But we're all over eighteen and it's past ten o'clock,” wheedled Froggy.

To no avail. Heartless cow. “My good woman, don't you know who I am....” began Lafayette, before being shown the empty bottle. “Oh bugger,”he said, “S'pose we'll have to drink rum .”

And so we got just one drink in before the train came to take us to Berwick.

Froggy had taken an original idea from Lafayette, (go round the reservoir, eat at Pete's), looked at it, thought about it, lengthened it and drawn a map. So nothing (in theory) should go wrong. Again it was a nice day and we were in shorts (remember this fact; it becomes relevant later). So we set off towards the reservoir. Except where recently there had been a good view and a bit of a field there was now a pile of maize between us and it,

waving about threateningly like something out of one of those American horror films where children get dragged in and end up as screaming skeletons.

“This wasn't here when I drew the map,” wailed Froggy. “Maybe it's grown since then,” said Laf. “It's a very quick crop.” “Perhaps we might find a pot of gold in the middle, and all become rich,” suggested Matt. “Don't be daft,” retorted Lafayette. “ The only people who would think that are those who believe in leprech.....

anyway we're in England now.” So we carefully skirted the field of maize, went on a bit and found the reservoir in it's usual place.

Lafayette tried out his new binoculars on all the wildlife on the reservoir and found they seemed to get nearer.

Froggy was still having difficulty holding the map the right way up, and Matt was looking fearfully over his shoulder just in case we were being pursued by nasty leprech......whatever, those Irish thingies that turn you into a screaming skeleton. Or is that a banshee? Anyway, we got round the deadly reservoir without too much trouble and headed for Pete's Yew Tree for a pint.

This was nice. We sat in Pete's back garden in the sun and had two pints. Froggy wanted to go back and get a third (something to do with the somewhat mature barmaid having huge knockers which she plonked on the bar while grinning at you) Eventually we told him it was his ramble, he was routemaster and he ought to take his role more seriously – like get us to Upper Dicker in time for lunch.

Apparently that day there had been a minute's silence for World War One at about eleven o'clock. This was just when Froggy was in the middle of telling us about one of his expeditions with His New Best Friends (Derek or Curly Clarke). His eloquence only paused when a renegade wasp flew into his glass and threatened to sting his beer. Lafayette called for an immediate mandatory two minutes silence (might as well cash in) while we killed the wasp and remembered the other forty million dead wasps who had died nose-diving into people's beer over the years.

Anyway on we went and shortly after pitched up at The Plough at Upper Dicker.

Not a bad choice of pub. Bags of room to sit out in the garden;

lots of milfs and kids to oggle at (the milfs, not the kids, of course), pretty good food and lots of Harveys.

Matt made a friend of the landlord of The Plough by talking to him a lot but didn't manage to get a discount – or even a free pudding. Froggy talked about his New Best Friends and Lafayette became jealous because he hadn't got any New Best Friends.

Matt carried on saying he was on hobknobbing terms with Katie Price and Peter Andray at which point Lafayette completely stopped being jealous.

After lunch we wandered round Upper Dicker and photographed a cat lying on a gravestone in a cemetery (where else?).

So Lafayette tried to kidnap it and called it his New Best Friend but the others made him put it back (Bastards!). And so we began the return journey, and guess what, we got lost.

The weather was really pleasant. The sun was shining, the birds were tweeting (or else on Facebook) but after a while Lafayette noticed all the pleasant green fields looked just like each other and Froggy was holding the map upside down again. Oh Dear!

The Routemaster sent us all over one large field to look for the appropriate exit but we just got loster. Round and round we went until Lafayette spied a farm worker who directed us through a shitty farm full of shitty cows. But at least it was in the generally right direction. Until.....

We came to another, what had once been a grassy field, and was now a maize ocean, nay a maize universe of impenetrably high crap. No good for NERDS this. We tried to penetrate (as they say) but got rebuffed. The only way was round the edges between the hedges and the maize. OK, it was do-able but at a cost. Remember we were all in shorts, yes we were, and the only viable way forward was through

a shit load of nettles.

Lafayette reckoned this was one of the most painful twenty minutes he had ever endured on a ramble. It surpassed even watching Philby trying to chat up every barmaid he would meet. (“And now I'm on step 3, kiss her all up her arm and talk to her in poetry while fluttering my big brown eyes” -Ugh!). Yes it was more painful even than this. Requiescat in Excelsis to Philby, and all that.

As we finally emerged somewhere near the Berwick Arms everybody's legs were inflamed and whizzing with nettle rashes zooming up and down. We soon got used to it. We were hard men, were we not NERDS? Yes, but it still hurt like hell! So we went to said pub and consoled ourselves in drink, and admired the barmaid, and didn't chat her up, and then returned to Lewes and thence homewards.

An interesting ramble and getting lost and bitten by nettles, leprechauns and banshees could not be attributed to Froggy. He'd taken us to a couple of good pubs and we'd had a good walk and not a bad meal. So it had been a success!

Hope all you lazy NERDS who didn't come are feeling guilty, and Lafayette hopes all your New Best Friends shun you too.

See you soon.

Lafayette.

NERDS' Ramble No. 296 - 24^th July 2014.

Those Present – NERDS: Froggy, Paco, Lafayette, Matt,

The Bish, Curly Clarke.

Darksiders – Sheila, Marion, Jane, Ed, Dave, Debbie.

Today was another joint bash between NERDS and Darksiders by popular request so that the NERDS could meet other people and hone their social skills by communicating with girlies. ( a long forgotten art).

Well, what a glorious day! It was sunny, it was hot, The NERDS turned up at Newhaven wearing a variety of exotic hats to wow the opposite sex, and clustered together under a tree near the port to protect their headgear.

The Darksiders turned up, were suitably impressed, and the game was afoot. (Or rather the ramble began).

Lafayette was in charge since his ally, Sandyballs, was off er..... doing something else (like being a mercenary at Gatwick or spending his blood money on foreign holidays again). So it was to be a seaside walk over the cliffs towards Peacehaven. Darksiders don't get to see the sea much since they're usually engaged in good works at airports or lying around reading the newspaper and thinking about the good old days etc. so it would be something of a treat for them.

Lafayette took everybody for a stroll through the Newhaven streets (that is, the safe ones where you wouldn't get robbed, importuned or sold out of date British Visitors passports by dodgy Nigerians). Then it was up the hill to the Coastwatch Lookout where Lafayette did most of his charity work (lounging around, drinking tea, talking to girlies and looking out for Somali pirates -

in fact more or less what he did at work, but now for free!)

The sun shone down, the seagulls cawed and it was a good job there was a sea breeze to mitigate the heat. Still, it was a good view over the Channel where the odd fishing boat was making a living bringing in cod for the cognoscenti and cannabis for the masses.

The NERDS and Darksiders plodded on fraternising and sororising too.

Everybody reached the Meridian monument where East meets West ( but only in the UK shall the twain meet).

Here poor Sheila met a pampered Indian girl who demanded she take a photo of her in front of the monument. Sheila agreed (she's nice like that, is Sheila) but the girl took so long arranging her hair, adjusting her knicks and re-applying her eye liner that, after taking the photo Sheila nearly lost sight of the main bunch and had to hurry to catch up. Good job Ed was keeping an eye out for stragglers.

Lunch was at The Smugglers Rest at Peacehaven which is a big pub and suitable for marauding bands of ramblers. We had all been here before so knew what to expect. After an initial dance around to get twelve people seated within conversation distance of each other, the Irish waitress (sic) got us settled and the aperitifs began. Fortunately the NERDS and the Darkside share a common attitude  to drink (get as much down you as you can ) so things started off OK. The NERDS were treated to having their horoscopes read out in public (A bit embarrassing for Lafayette who was told he would fall in love with the Bish (!) but it all worked out in the end).

At table No 2 Matt was heard teaching the Darksiders how to complain about everything and get free puddings; Froggy was heard dining out on his adventures up at Hadrian's Wall and Marion was trying to inject a little culture into the proceedings by explaining the plot of Mozart's Cosi fan Tutte to those who'd heard of Glyndebourne. (Casting pearls before NERDS springs to mind here.) On table No1 the Bish had been served with a substandard beef burger, so moaned to the waitress. However before she could attend to his complaint Lafayette snatched it up, doused it in sauce and swallowed it (Well, he was hungry). The waitress, despite what looked like a conspiracy to get extra food, did believe him and got him a free pint. Lafayette admitted the burger had been a bit dry – but so what?

After lunch it was back over the hot, arid cliffs to Newhaven. One or two of the NERDS bailed out at various points and got the bus back (Notably the Bish and Paco) Lafayette and Sheila were both disgusted. They would never do such a cowardly thing however incapable they might have felt after one or two drinks. But it was a pleasant walk back amongst all the flowers and butterflies on the winding paths.

Back at Newhaven more drink was demanded so Lafayette led everyone to the Ark, and we settled in the back garden in the sun and Dave gave us a lecture on the absolute brilliance of old railway timetables as opposed to the inaccuracy of the modern Google system (Yeah, yeah, yeah).........then someone requested fish and chips. So once again Lafayette got them up and marched them to his favourite fish and chippery round the corner where he did a deal for cash with his namesake there ( a female also called Lafayette). And so everyone sat scoffing fishy stuff infront of the sea looking at the boats and things.

It seemed to have all gone off OK; the weather had been great, Curly Clarke had re-met a lot of people he once knew at Gatwick; nobody had fallen out ( Laf. and the Bish had actually got even closer over that beef burger) and the Darksiders had seen the sea again. It had been nice to get everyone together so maybe we'll do it again sometime.

Nierdos Para Siempre und Darksiders Uber Alles!

Love to all.

Lafayette.

P.S. This is not a work of art; just an account of what probably happened. Lafayette has asserted his right under the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the sole author of this work. So there.

June Ramble 2014

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

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

The “Never Done it This Way Round” Ramble.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lafayette. 

Froggy's Joining Instructions

Fellow Nierdos!

This month, I have been honoured with the route-mastering. Now this could be something to do with my wonderful feats of resolve up north somewhere, or it could be that our resident and stalwart Route-Master has had to give in to my constant pawing at him to Do Another Walk!

The theme of this month's ramble is "Birling Gap, one last time before it sinks into oblivion". Now I have done some research and, sad to say, there are no more foaming pints at said place, just the odd twee bottle of wine and small can of IPA. So, with this horror in mind, the walk will only pass Birling Gap as a curiosity and not as an essentiality.

OK so we meet at Seaford in the Old Boot Inn @ 10:30 hrs. (Harry, best trains for you - 09:58 arriving at 10:14, with time to fiddle or 10:28 arriving at 10:46 with a fast walk to the Boot)? Please do not forget your bus passes as the walk involves the no 12 bus both ways.

If the weather is kind, the walk will be a pleasure! And, this being June, and a prominent summer month, one cannot  rule out the possibility of OAP fish suppers at Osborne's!

Froggy x

Spain in May 2014

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

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

The Second NERDS' Spanish Expedition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 2 – A musical interlude and other adventures.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 3 – Barbecue Day!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Day 4 – A Little Trip to the Mountains.

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

We headed towards Morella an hour's drive away.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

After a pleasant lunch at Vinatea restaurant

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

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

BT wanted to visit Morella Castle,

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

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

Final Day – The NERDS split Up.

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

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

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

Lafayette.