This blog is dedicated to the wonderful town of Tunbridge Wells
21-06-2011
OUR NEXT TRIP !!!
in a few weeks time, we're heading again towards our favourite town. we take off on monday july 18 at about 2am in the morning to catch the 6am ferry in Dunkerk. we'll be staying for two weeks to spend our summer holidays in the town we love the most
what are the plans??? well, we plan to do some shopping, visit all Tunbridge Wells' delights again, see our friend from TWFC at the Courier Cup, hosted by Rusthall FC, going on a day trip to Canterbury, visit our petanque friends at the Crowborough Social Club, enjoy Manor Court Farm in all it ways and so much more...
you can read the complete story of our holiday when we come back to Belgium in August!
last friday we took off at the impossible hour of 2am towards our beloved Tunbridge Wells to celebrate our wedding anniversary. for the first time we went on a holiday without our kids and i must say it was totally different. allthough we love our children more than anything else, it doesn't hurt too much to leave them at their grandparents every once in a while
for the first time too, we were unfaithfull to P&O ferries. their prices for the Calais-Dover crossing have raisen incredibly so we chose to try DFDS seaways and did the Dunquerque-Dover crossing. we must say, it was a most entertaining experience to cross the Channel with DFDS seaways. their ships are extremely comfortable, they have all kinds of facilities P&O doesn't have and so much more.
at about 8am on friday morning we arrived in Dover harbour and we both my wife and I felt again "like we come home". we drove to Manor Court Farm where we got our usual warm welcome by our landlady Sarah. unfortunately it started raining while we were on our way from Dover to Tunbridge Wells but that couldn't spoil our good mood.
after we installed ourselves in our room, we drove to RVP to do some shopping and we bought some presents to give to eachother we had a quick lunch at the food court on RVP's ground floor and continued shopping.
we carried our bags to the car afterwards and we took a walk down Mount Pleasant Road to meet Charlie Rose (the extremely nice gentleman who did the interview on us for BBC South East Today) at the BBC Kent television studios. he was very pleased to see us and invited us to take a tour around the TV and radio studios from BBC Kent. this was a very entertaining experience, i would even dare to say a "WAAAW" experience. we also met Polly, one of the hosts of BBC South East Today. she is a most gentle person and very charming.
after we said goodbeye to Charlie and the rest of the BBC Kent crew, we went for a drink at The Ragged Trousers, our favourite pub. i took a pint of Dipper, my favourite beer from The Royal Tunbridge Wells Brewing Company and my wife just had a coke... meanwhile, we ordered a table for two for sunday lunch. we also visited the Tunbridge Wells museum that day which was most pleasant as well.
afterwards we drove to Sainsbury's to do some shopping, took off to the farm again and had a few sandwiches. so a very exciting first day came to an end and at about 8pm we already fell asleap with a big smile on our faces.
on saturday morning we woke up, washed up and enjoyed Sarah's wonderful breakfast. the weather was very good on saturday so we drove to the city centre for a nice long walk. we discovered some very nice things we had never noticed before. we took a walk at Calverley Crescent (a special thanks to Christopher Cassidy and his wonderful website for this!) and discovered more beautiful spots at Calverley Grounds as well. we had the best times ever!
after taking a quick lunch we took off to Culverden Stadium where our friends from the Tunbridge Wells Football Club were waiting for us. as usual, we had a real good time at Culverden and Phill, the club's secretary even made an announcement for our wedding anniversary for the whole stadium! (in dutch!!!) unfortunately the result of the game wasn't as bright as the weather but we keep supporting this great local team anyway.
on saturday night we treated ourselves to a fantastic dinner at the Chafford Arms pub. tired but delighted about the wonderful day we had, we returned to Manor Court Farm and went to sleep, again with a big smile on our faces
as we woke up on sunday morning, the sun was there already and again we enjoyed Sarah's breakfast. unfortunately we had to pack our bags on that day, the most unpleasant thing to do when you're in Tunbridge Wells... we said goodbeye to Sarah, said goodbeye to all the farm animals and took off towards Sainsbury's to get some groceries to take along to Belgium.
the sun guided us towards The Pantiles where we took a nice and calm walk at, regarding to us, one of the most beautiful places on earth. at about midday we headed towards The Ragged Trousers for our Sunday lunch, superbly prepared as usual by masterchef Sebastien.
and so the time for "bye and see you soon" had arrived again we drove towards Dover to catch te 4pm ferry and after a nice trip (thanks DFDS seaways!) we arrived in Dunquerque.
with our minds and hearts full of great memories we drove back to Vilvoorde and we already look forward to our next trip to our beloved and precious Tunbridge Wells!
last weekend we had an excellent trip to our beloved town together with some friends of us (david and mandy) from belgium we took along to discover the wonderful town Tunbridge Wells. it was most enjoyable and we had a great time as usual. thx everyone for making it a great weekend again !
During the last couple of years, we made a lot of new friends inTunbridgeWells. I would be ashamed to not dedicate a little word to them
First of all there is Sarah from Manor Court Farm who is a real friend to us. We have complete trust in her and we really think she's a wonderful person who deserves all credit for everything she does.
And then of course there are the people from the Tunbridge Wells Football Club. There is Dave, Phill and Wynette, Joe, Darrell, Heather and John and many more. Those wonderful people give their heart and soul for the club and we have a real great liking for them. They make us feel really welcome every time we come over to see a game and they have all our respect and friendship, they're worth it!
Many credits as well for the staff from The Ragged Trousers pub at The Pantiles. This is no ordinary pub for us, it's so much more because of their kindness and the hospitality they show towards us.
THX EVERYONE FOR MAKING US FEEL WELCOME IN THE WONDERFUL TOWN OF TUNBRIDGE WELLS !!!
At home playing centre half or left back, Steve initially came through one of the former Tunbridge Wells Youth teams before moving across to Tonbridge Angels and then Rusthall. He linked up with The Wells again in pre-season 2009/10. Now well established in the Tunbridge Wells defence.
Defender and Captain, Bourney is a seasoned campaigner and played in the Southern League for Great Wakering Rovers before re-joining the club for the second time when Martin Farnie returned. Fierce competitor Jason is popular with The Wells faithful and captains the side.
Now in his third spell with the club, Andy has returned to The Wells following a short spell in the Ryman League with neigbouring Crowborough. He is a 'strong voice' in training and on match days.
Stepped up from the Kent County League in a bid to further his career with The Wells. Scored plenty of goals for Tonbridge Invicta, and ticks the boxes of young, local, talented and hungry to improve.
Michal returned to The Wells in Season 2008/09 from stints at Tonbridge Angels and Redhill. A big strong keeper, he left the club as a reserve keeper and has returned as the No 1. A key member of the squad.
Tom has an exceptional youth record, including playing for England Schoolboys - and with Ryman league experience he was brought in to add further quality to the side. A left footed player with great passing ability.
Hailing from Northern Ireland, Andy has moved from the midlands into the area with work during pre-season 2009/10. He impressed with his attitude in pre-season and offers width to the midfield. He has quickly become an integral part of the team.
Midfielder Sam came through the youth ranks at Tunbridge Wells and played in the reserves at Sevenoaks Town before the Wells re-signed him.
His energy and non-stop running has kept him in the first team. An enthusiastic player - Sam picked up recognition for a particularly good season in 2007/08 netting the Supporter's and Manager's Player of the Year award.
Joined the U18s from Tonbridge Angels and was the U18s player-of-the-year for 2007/08. A midfield player with the U18s, Jon has stepped up to the reserves and played as a striker. What a conversion - he was the Kent League Division 2 top scorer in 2008/09. Moved into the first team set up this year, and continues to score goals.
Tunbridge Wells native Alex is proof of the Wells youth policy bearing fruit. Not only did he come through the youth team ranks but up through the reserves before making his mark in the first team squad.
A pacy left sided winger/Midfielder, Alex played for Tonbridge Angels and Crowborough Athletic in the Ryman League between stints at The Wells - who he rejoined for a third time in pre-season 2009/10.
Vastly experienced utility-man, who's career has included time in the professional game. A great passer of the ball, who displays great vision and often simple but effective execution. This year Brad becomes assistant manager, while remaining available to play if needs be.
Belgium is world famous for its beers. You got Leffe, Duvel, Chimay and much more. But again I'm not really into belgian beers, probably most of the world will say i'm nuts but i prefer the english real ales and lagers. My absolute favourites are the beers made by the Wychwood Brewery. Their ales are outstanding, their bottles and labels are unique collectables. An excellent number 2 are the beers from the Tunbridge Wells Brewing Company. They're great local beers with an excellent taste, i just love them all To go commercial, i would pick Carling lager for it's refreshing taste.
Untill now we posted lots of positive items about our beloved town. Nevertheless we miss some things that used to be part of the town... First of all i want to mention "A day at the Wells". Back in the ninetees, when i first visited Tunbridge Wells for a couple of times, there was this lovely museum "A day at the Wells". It used to be where nowadays you can now find The Corn Exchange shops and tearoom. I told my wife about this exhibition and Beau Nash but unfortunately it was gone by the time we re-discovered Tunbridge Wells. After asking around a bit, i was told that the town council just got rid of it. What a shame! I tried google to find some pictures on the exhibition but that didn't give many results... If anyone has pictures or footage about "A day at the Wells", please feel free to contact us through this blog.
Two others things we miss are Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Pizza Hut who both used to be at Mount Pleasant Road. In January 2009 GBK was still there and we enjoyed every bit of it. On our next trip in April 2009 it was already gone. Same story with Pizza Hut. In july 2009 it was still there, in november 2009 it was gone as well.
It's a bit sad that these restaurants have dissapeared as it's not always easy to find a place to eat with 3 children...
This blog wouldn't be complete without a word about Manor Court Farm. Manor Court Farm is a B&B and campsite on a lovely farm in Ashurst near Tunbridge Wells where we feel "at home". When we're in Tunbridge Wells, we always stay over at this wonderful venue. The farm is owned by Julia and the landlady is Sarah. Sarah is a very warm and friendly person who serves the best breakfast in the area. She became a real friend of ours. The rooms at Manor Court Farm B&B are spacious and very clean and really good value for money. Manor Court Farm lies in a beautiful countryside and is very suitable for families with children. At the farm you can find chickens, rabbits, turkeys, birds, guinnea pigs and sheep. On the farm, you can also find Holly, an extremely friendly black labrador retriever, Kitty the farmcat and Logan, the trainee-farmcat. Sarah even allowed us to adopt one of her rabbits for our children, truffle.
as we said before, Tunbridge Wells is a wonderful place to visit and probably a great place to live as well. but during our holidays we got to know some other nice places too. first of all there is Crowborough. what we like about Crowborough? well, there is the Crowborough Social Club which includes the Crowborough Petanque Club. they've got a marvellous venue with lots of very nice "pistes". As petanque is a hobby for us too, we had a really good time last summer at the club and we got to know two very nice gentlemen, Tim Andrews and his mate Tom. We sure will be visiting them again and we will sure keep in touch with them!
last summer we visited Penshurst Place and Gardens in Penshurst. we had a lovely day out and the 5 of us saw the most beautiful things. whenever you're in the Tunbridge Wells area, Penshurst Place and Gardens is surely a must-do.
the ragged trousers - the best pub you can imagine
On the Pantiles at n° 44 you can find the outstanding pub The Ragged Trousers. First of all, our compliments to the staff and the chef in the basement The drinks they serve are top of the range and the food the chef prepares is truly delicious. The chef 's dishes are most of the time very original. He puts unusual flavours together and serves you a superb meal. What's important too is that you get very good value for money. The portions are large and prices are very reasonable.
And then there is the staff... Words cannot describe how wonderful they are. The moment we pop into the pub, our son Andrew's half pint of milk is already being served Unfortunately we don't know the names of everyone who works at the pub but i must say they're all angels. A special mention allthough for Poppie, one of the waitresses, who is very keen on our little Andrew and the feelings are similar. Every time they see eachother, they get really emotional in a pleasant way At home there's even a picture from Andrew and his Poppie above his bed.
So guys, keep the good work going and you can be sure we'll be customers for many more years to come.
Tunbridge Wells is a real shoppers' delight At Royal Victoria Place on the first floor you find my wife Cindy's and our daughter Amy's number 1: Jane Norman Our youngest daughter Sara prefers H&M on the same floor... Our son Andrew and myself prefer Sports Direct on the second floor, as we're tottaly into football. Of course there are lots of other nice shops at RVP but the ones i mentioned above are our absolute favourites. A nother great thing about RVP is the Food Court on the ground floor, you can eat whatever you want from different food providers and sit together anyway. We don't know such things in Belgium...
Sometimes i don't find the football shirt i'm looking for at Sports Direct but then there's still Christopher Hull (Intersport) on Mount Pleasant Road who helps me out. A bit more expensive than Sports Direct but good quality staff
For all our favourite food and drinks to take along to Belgium or just to use at our B&B, we go to Sainsburys. They offer everything we like, almost 24/7 the whole year. Every credit to them!
Here's a little story about how we got in touch with the TUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB. As i'm totally into english football, in the beginning of 2009, i started searching on the internet to look if my favourite town didn't have a football club. I found out there was indeed the TUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB. As a collector of football shirts, i got in touch with Dave Knell, the clubshop manager of theTUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB. He was so kind to send me a shirt of the team for my collection, which i very much appreciated. We kept in touch and in april 2009 we first visited a game of the club from the town we love the most. We got to know several committee members and local fans and they made us feel really welcome. From that day on we became fans! Since then, whenever there's a home game on when we're in Tunbridge Wells, we go and support the team. We still feel very welcome every time we are at the club, we always have a really good time and we are able to see some good football. The TUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB plays in the Kent Premier Division and is a really descent team with some real quality players. The team performs at a high level under it's current manager Martin Larkin.
The committee of the club is formed by Norman Sales (president), Joe Croker (chairman and treasurer), Phill Allcorn (secretary), Darrell Cousins (clubhouse manager and vice chairman), Dave Knell (clubshop manager and programme), Wynette Allcorn (hospitality/safety), Heather Milton (welfare and child protection) and John Milton (supporters rep.)
You can contact the club at: TUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB ltd. Culverden Stadium, Culverden Down, Tunbridge Wells TN4 9SG 01892520517 www.tunbridgewellsfc.co.uk
For us is this the beating heart of Kentish football and we'll be supporting the club for many more years !!!
we were also on BBC radio Kent on november 30 this year at about 6.30 am for a live interview and we were on BBC South East Today on november 29 with a very nice TV performance. Mr Charlie Rose from the BBC kindly came over to Belgium to do a report on us as regular Tunbridge Wells visitors. It was most entertaining and BBC South East gave us about 4 minutes airtime . I must say Mr Rose is a real nice gentlemen and i sure hope he enjoyed his short stay here with us.
here's a little story about how our "tunbridge wells love affair" started off...
back in the ninetees, when i was still a student, some former classmates of me and myself, visited the town of Tunbridge Wells. our visit back then was according to a first working experience project from school. we were so keen on the town we visited Tunbridge Wells 4 times in 2 years time (seems like the love affair already started in those days )
years went by and i got myself a job and a fabulous wife... meanwhile, we got 3 wonderful children...
as we were always in some way connected and attracted by the beauty of England, at a certain moment i started telling stories to my wife about Tunbridge Wells. of course she was very curious about all the nice things i told her about the spa town. at the beginning of january 2009 we decided to give it a go, booked ourselves a ferry and off we were... the first place where we stayed over was Hawkenbury Farm. this is a really nice B&B but unfortunately not really suitable for children... nevertheless we had a very nice time and i re-discovered all the towns' delights. my wife and children immediately were very attracted to Tunbridge Wells as well, this came in rather handy
after that first weekend we were ready for much more of this! we searched the internet in order to get ready for much more trips to Tunbridge Wells. with a little help from some great people from the Tunbridge Wells Football Club we discovered Manor Court Farm in Ashurst. (i'll do some extra articles on the football club, our favourite pub and the B&B we always stay over later on, there are some nice stories to be told about them as well)
the rest of the story about our family and Tunbridge Wells you can consider as a "neverending love story". since the beginning of 2009 we try to visit the town at least every 2 months for weekends, short breaks and larger holidays and we made lots of friends in the town and it's surroundings.
meanwhile, we were in the local press as well as regular tunbridge wells visitors, later on i'll post some links where you can see and hear us, it's really amusing
This is in brief how we fell in love with Tunbridge Wells. of course there's much more to be told, visiting Tunbridge Wells as much as possible is our main goal in life.
unfortunately, our favourite pub, The Ragged Trousers at The Pantiles, doesn't have a website, but i can assure you the pub is highly recommended by the whole of our family!
more links to come, but just try out the ones above and you'll already get a good view on what we mean
People ask us: why Tunbridge Wells? By making this blog, we want to show everyone why we love Tunbridge Wells so much. In the next couple of days, i'll post some pictures and some nice stories about our holidays in this marvellous town. After you've seen the pictures and read the stories, you'll see what we mean
A special column in this blog will be dedicated to the best football club in the world, Tunbridge Wells Football Club. The club deserves any credit they can get, it is run by some wonderful people who would give their heart and soul for the club, it's the real heart of Kentish football.
We sure hope you'll enjoy this blog and please feel free to leave comments to improve this blog.
Ik ben philip dhont - cindy naudts - amy, sara, andrew
Ik ben een man en woon in vilvoorde (belgium) en mijn beroep is opvoeder.
Ik ben geboren op 23/10/1971 en ben nu dus 53 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: tunbridge wells, football, petanque.
a belgian family with a heart for tunbridge wells
Gastenboek
Druk op onderstaande knop om een berichtje achter te laten in mijn gastenboek
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