Apologies for the last-minute change of venue. However, the Summerhouse is a lovely place, close to the York Rd entrance to the Trinity Theatre. Easy to find ~ simply look for the throng of Photowalkers!

All Photowalkers (ie those that purchased a ticket!) are entitled to bring one guest with them to help cast a vote for the winning entry.

We have kept aside a small amount of money from the ticket price to help provide drink and nibbles on the evening ~ but anyone who wishes to help support the event and bring along a bottle or provide some nibbles will be extra-welcomed with open arms!

Please remember this is a non-profit event, it runs with the goodwill and support of the local community and businesses.

Special thanks must go to Hari Covert who is helping to provide some special nibbles for the judging evening.

Here is the latest edition of the TWTwitterati – local people with the most followers on Twitter.

Click on the link below to see a full list of accounts linked to Tunbridge Wells. See where you ranked as at 09 April 2012, compare your stats with those of your friends and family, or discover some new local tweeters.

Scroll down to the bottom of the list to see the top 20s by (i) followers added in the month and (ii) the Twitter addicts – most tweets in the past month.

TW List of Twitter Accounts 09 April 2012

To qualify for inclusion, you must live in Tunbridge Wells, work in Tunbridge Wells, mention Tunbridge Wells in your Twitter location or regularly attend Twuttle / Twuddle events. If you have been omitted but you qualify and wish to be included, then please contact me via Twitter @tw_people
or by leaving a comment on the blog. Similiarly, if you know of any other TW accounts, please pass on their details. Thank you.

The second Big Slurp was as resounding a success as the first. If you missed it… and unusually for a Twuttle / Twuddle event, it is kind hush-hush… please leave a comment below together with your email address, and we’ll include you on the invite list for the next one.

Overall winner of the soup competition was Nick Pope with his utterly-delicious Carrot Soup with Coconut & Lemongrass. However, there were so many great soup recipes, it was nigh on impossible to pick a winner. Next time, we’ll devise a fairer voting system (not that Nick’s soup wasn’t worthy…) as those who’s soup was heated up last perhaps got a unfair crack of the whip. (Sorry Lesley, I didn’t even get to taste yours… which I’m told was delicious).

Winner of the bread competition was Hari Cover… Hari are you going to let us ‘publish’ your recipe or do you want to keep it secret?

We were even treated to two superb desserts… another winner from Nick with his gobsmacking Pear & Almond pudding / cake… and a gorgeously moist Carrot Cake by Sharon Abrams.

By popular request, recipes are below including (by popular demand), Hari Covert’s Beer Bread.

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CARROT SOUP WITH COCONUT & LEMONGRASS

Serves 4
Prep 15 mins Cook 35 mins Freeze up to 3 months

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

1 lemongrass stalk, trimmed and tough outer layer discarded

2 garlic cloves, chopped

2 teaspoons finely grated root ginger

1 tablespoons red Thai curry paste

450g (1lb) carrots, sliced

900ml (1½ pints) hot vegetable stock

3 kaffir lime leaves

165ml (6fl oz) can coconut milk

salt and freshly ground pepper

lime wedges, to serve

Method:

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the onion, and fry to 3-4 minutes or until starting to soften.

Meanwhile, finely chop the lemongrass, then add to the pan, along with the garlic and ginger, and fry for 2 minutes.

Add the curry paste and fry for 1 minute, stirring all the time.

Add the carrots and fry for 2 minutes.

Pour in the stock, add the lime leaves and simmer for 20-25 minutes or until the carrots are tender.

Remove from the heat and take out and discard the lime leaves.

Pour in the coconut milk, then whiz in a blender or food processor until smooth.

The soup shouldn’t be too thick – dilute with more stock if it is.

Season to taste, then serve with a grating of black pepper and lime wedges.

From “The Soup Book” (Soil Association) published by Dorling Kindersley

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PEAR & ALMOND PUDDING / CAKE

Serves 8
Prep 10 mins Cook 45 mins

2 pears

125g/4½oz butter

125g/4½oz caster sugar

2 free-range eggs, large or medium

65g/2¼oz plain flour

65g/2¼oz ground almonds

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 table spoon flaked almonds (optional)

1 dessert spoon of caster or demerara sugar (optional)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180o/350o/gas 4.

Peel the pears and cut into 4 lengthways, removing the seeds and core. You should end up with 8 pieces.

Grease and lightly flour a round cake tin.

Beat together the butter, caster sugar and eggs until light and fluffy.

Add the flour, ground almonds and baking powder and mix thoroughly.

Spoon mixture into the cake tin.

Arrange the pears on top of the mixture.

Sprinkle with flaked almonds (optional) and additional sugar (optional).

Bake in the preheated oven for about 45 minutes, checking at around 35 to 40 minutes.

Serve hot, warm or cold.

© Nicholas Pope

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SHARON’S CARROT CAKE

8oz self raising flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

5oz muscovado sugar

4 oz carrots (grated)

2 ripe bananas (mashed)

2 eggs

5 fl oz sunflower oil

Topping:

6oz low fat soft cheese

2oz margarine

4oz icing sugar

Few drops vanilla essence

Method:

Pre heat oven to 180 C / 350 F / gas mark 4

Line an 8″ (20cm) deep round cake tin

Place all ingredients for the cake in a large bowl and mix well until roughly

blended and smooth, turn into the prepared tin and level the surface.

Bake in the preheated oven for 50-60 minutes until well risen and shrinking away

from the sides of the tin.

Allow to cool in the tin for a few minutes before turning out and leaving to

cool completely on a wire rack.

For the topping blend the ingredients together until smooth and spread onto the

cold cake.

© Sharon Abrams

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HARI COVERT’S BEER BREAD

375g Self Raising flour
3 tablespoons Caster Sugar
330ml Beer ( I use a Moodleys beer which is live with natural yeasts)
Teaspoon of salt

Mix all ingredients to a wet batter then pour into well greased loaf tin
sprinkle top with sesame seeds or whatever you prefer!

Bake for 40 – 50 mins in preheated oven at 180 degrees C

© Hari Covert

For more Hari Covert recipes and for information on his Secret Underground Restaurant visit his blog here.

The Fourth Tunbridge Wells Photowalk takes place on Sunday 1st of April. The theme is LOVE & HATE ~ what you love and hate about Tunbridge Wells. We are asking you to take one photograph for LOVE and another for HATE.

Tickets, priced £7.50 each, are available exclusively from REDBOX CAMERAS on Monson Road. They go on sale from Saturday 24th March. Each ticket gains entry into the competition plus a large photographic print of your chosen images, which will be exhibited at Wobblybridge Gallery on Camden Road. As with the last Photowalk, entries will be judged by all who attend the opening night of the exhibition ~ one vote per person.

Here’s the clever bit… both of your chosen images must be arranged to make a diptych. What’s that I hear you cry? Well, quite simply, your two images ~ one for LOVE and one for HATE ~ should be arranged within a single frame. The two images can be the same size, or one can be smaller than the other. You can divide the image as you wish, by a straight line or a curved line. It’s totally up to you!

Some suggestions as to how you might arrange the two images are shown below. The staff at Redbox Cameras, who have great experience in all aspects of photography, will be able to help you and make suggestions. They will also create the ‘diptych’ image for you if you wish… just brief them and they’ll do the rest.

And of course, you don’t have to have a fancy dividing line between the two images at all… they can simply sit side by side, or one above the other. But the final overall ‘canvas’ size MUST be landscape and not portrait.

The event starts between Noon and 1pm at FLOWERS AT COLONNADE (the florist shop/café on Monson Rd in Tunbridge Wells ~ opposite Redbox Cameras), where in exchange for this ticket you will be registered to take part in the competition. The café will be serving their excellent teas and coffees… plus a range of grub if you’re feeling peckish.

The event will finish at SANKEYS in Tunbridge Wells, from 3.30pm onwards, where we’ll all be gathering to sample their famous fish fingers sarnies (kindly donated to the event by Matt Sankey) and no doubt sampling a glass or two of their finest ales.

If you have any queries, or to express interest in taking part in the Photowalk, please leave a comment below.

Here is the latest edition of the TWTwitterati – local people with the most followers on Twitter.

Click on the link below to see a full list of accounts linked to Tunbridge Wells. See where you ranked as at 04 March 2012, compare your stats with those of your friends and family, or discover some new local tweeters.

Scroll down to the bottom of the list to see the top 20s by (i) followers added in the month and (ii) the Twitter addicts – most tweets in the past month.

TW List of Twitter Accounts 04 March 2012

To qualify for inclusion, you must live in Tunbridge Wells, work in Tunbridge Wells, mention Tunbridge Wells in your Twitter location or regularly attend Twuttle / Twuddle events. If you have been omitted but you qualify and wish to be included, then please contact me via Twitter @tw_people
or by leaving a comment on the blog. Similiarly, if you know of any other TW accounts, please pass on their details. Thank you.

In March 2009, four fledgling twitterers met at Cafe Nero in Tunbridge Wells…

Roll on three years… and that initial meeting has became the Twuttle we know and love today. We’ve never actually counted the number of different people who have attended Twuttle, but estimates vary between 300 and 400!  And that doesn’t count the meetings that have followed in the Twuttle style – our very own ‘sister’ event Twuddle, and the meet-ups in the wider local area – Crowborough’s Cruddle, Sevenoaks’ Oakuddle and Skuttle, plus similar events in Tonbridge, Lewes and Edenbridge.

The place may have changed (we quickly outgrew Café Nero) but Twuttle still takes place every Wednesday morning at 10am until noon. The Trinity Theatre is the current home and we must say thanks to them for hosting the event – but we must also say a big thank you to past venues, which have included The Royal Wells, Pigwideon & Pye and Bean.

Three years on, and Twuttle is still the same ‘unstructured’ meet-up where people can simply chat and exchange thoughts & ideas. From these informal meetings many friendships and relationships (both business and personal) have been formed. It’s working as well now as it did at the very beginning, and for many, it is the cornerstone of their week.

If you’ve never attended, this could be the ideal opportunity! To celebrate our third anniversary, we are holding what we hope will be a record breaking meeting – let’s get more people to attend a single Twuttle than ever before! The THIRD ANNIVERSARY TWUTTLE will be held at the Trinity on the 7th March. It is your chance to not only to mingle with the Tunbridge Wells Twitterati but to become one yourself!

And did we mention there will be cake?!

(The hashtag for the event is #twuttle3 – please mention this in your tweets!).

Here is the latest edition of the TWTwitterati – local people with the most followers on Twitter.

Click on the link below to see a full list of accounts linked to Tunbridge Wells. See where you ranked as at 04 February 2012, compare your stats with those of your friends and family, or discover some new local tweeters.

Scroll down to the bottom of the list to see the top 20s by (i) followers added in the month and (ii) the Twitter addicts – most tweets in the past month.

TW List of Twitter Accounts 04 February 2012

To qualify for inclusion, you must live in Tunbridge Wells, work in Tunbridge Wells, mention Tunbridge Wells in your Twitter location or regularly attend Twuttle / Twuddle events. If you have been omitted but you qualify and wish to be included, then please contact me via Twitter @tw_people
or by leaving a comment on the blog. Similiarly, if you know of any other TW accounts, please pass on their details. Thank you.

Here’s the first edition for the new year of the TWTwitterati – local people with the most followers on Twitter.

Click on the link below to see a full list of accounts linked to Tunbridge Wells. See where you ranked as at 07 January 2012, compare your stats with those of your friends and family, or discover some new local tweeters.

Scroll down to the bottom of the list to see the top 20s by (i) followers added in the month and (ii) the chatterboxes – most tweets in the past month.

TW List of Twitter Accounts 07 January 2012

To qualify for inclusion, you must live in Tunbridge Wells, work in Tunbridge Wells, mention Tunbridge Wells in your Twitter location or regularly attend Twuttle / Twuddle events. If you have been omitted but you qualify and wish to be included, then please contact me via Twitter @tw_people
or by leaving a comment on the blog. Similiarly, if you know of any other TW accounts, please pass on their details. Thank you.

Hello my fellow twuddlers.

After an amazingly successful (approximately 20-30 people) inaugural #twuddle Tunbridge Wells Real Ale Pub Crawl in November 2010, and promising to run them once a quarter, @MrCRTW and myself @mannyvw have finally got around to organising the 2nd Tunbridge Wells Real Ale Pub Crawl nearly 18 months later

Starting after lunch around 2pm on Sunday 4th March 2012 at the Ragged Trousers on the Pantiles. We will then visit around 8 Tunbridge Wells pubs, consuming a half of a real ale in each pub, in half an hour and then moving onto the next pub, giving ourselves walking time between pubs. A kitty will organised for those who will be having the recommended ale in each pub, non-real ale drinkers and people who will only be joining us for part of the pub crawl please organise your own drinks.

Myself and @MrCRTW will again be choosing 8 Tunbridge Wells pubs, although the exact list and route is still being worked out, the great news is, in the time since the last pub crawl, 2 excellent new real ale pubs have opened and we will be adding them to the list, we will also be switching some of the pubs around, so we both look forward to seeing you on the pubcrawl, more details nearer the time.

Thanks

Update 25th January

The #twpubcrawl will start as mentioned at the The Ragged Trousers at 2pm on Sunday 4th where we will collect £12 from each person who wishes to join in on the recommended beer in each of the pubs. Please buy your own drink in the Ragged as am expecting people to arrive at different times and it will be difficult to keep track who has had theirs. Once we know numbers we will leave the Ragged Trousers around 2.30pm and then visit the following pubs, spending approximatly half an hour in each pub:-

The Compasses
The Royal Oak
The Wells Kitchen
Sankeys
Beau Nash

After the Beau Nash we will make our way to the The Bedford for a beer bat, which comprises of 3 1/3 pints of beer served on….well a bat (so 1 pint in total), Mark from The Bedford has also kindly agreed to lay on some pub snacks comprising of their excellent scotch eggs, Port Pies & Sausage rolls. If there is any cash left in the kitty at this point can use towards further beers

There is now a Facebook event for the pub crawl Please click on attending if you would like to join us, and use hashtag #twpubcrawl on twitter. Thanks

For anyone who hasn’t yet been down to the Christmas ice rink in Calverley Grounds, Tuesday 20th, from 7.30pm to 8.30pm could well be the ideal opportunity. Bring your friends and family and join the assorted Twuttlers & Twuddlers skating around the rink in a suitably festive fashion (reindeer antlers and Xmas hats are entirely optional). It doesn’t matter whether you’re a dab hand at the triple salchow, or have never strapped on a pair of skates in your life… the event is open to all and suitable for skaters of all abilities.

For more information on the rink, click here to visit their website.

We’re told that hot drinks and food are available down at the rink ~ although we suspect that skating whilst slurping a latte and nibbling a mince pie is probably frowned upon. Actually, there are t&cs on their website, so please take heed of the dos and don’ts.

There is a spectator area for non-skaters to watch proceedings and shout helpful advice from the sidelines.

Next Tuesday evening is also the date for the last Bedford quiz before Christmas. This starts at 8pm and a Twuddle team usually enters, so once the skating is over, it would seem rude not to nip over the road to this most-excellent pub to give them some support. But no help in answering the questions please ~ you wouldn’t want them disqualified would you?

We hope to see you on the 20th! ~ Any questions & queries, please leave a comment below.

PS. There is a discount scheme for parties of 10 or more, so if you are thinking of coming along, please let us know. Get enough people together and we could save some money on the ticket price.