Tunbridge Wells and Official Welcome

This morning was rather cool - 6 degrees and the weatherman didn't promise more than 9 for the day! Decided to start the day by heading off to Tunbridge Wells. Found my way to Charing Cross and was on the 9:30 train. The trip took about an hour and when I arrived it was raining and quite miserable. When I left London although cold it was sunnyish! Went off to the Pantiles first to get some instructions on how to get up to Toad Rock to get a photo or two. Dad often talked about playing on Toad Rock and despite a number of visits to the town I had never taken a photo of this location. Today would have been the gloomiest day of all my visits to Tunbridge Wells and somehow The Pantiles did not look nearly as attractive in the overcast and wet conditions. I also headed up to the Museum where they have an amazing collection of Tunbridge Ware which is the inlaid wood boxes that the town was famous for for 400 years. It seems the technique which looks like inlaid wood but is in fact more like parquetry has died out with the last of the tradesmen hanging up their tools in 1930. The curator at the Museum was an Irishman and a keen follower of Rugby. He came to New Zealand for the 2011 Rugby World Cup and believes Ireland will get through to the semi finals - he will just have to wait and see. I got back to London around 3:30 and decided to start this blog before I head off to a Supporters function. I will take the camera along and see if I can get some photos of the 250 New Zealanders supposed to be here for the Rugby. The hotel is very comfortable and the Tower Hill tube station is just around the corner. The photos I took of Toad Rock are not very good but the best I could do. Ended the day with the welcome function which was a bit of a bun fight. We received a drink voucher on the way in but when you produced it you were told it wasn't valid until after 8 pm! The function started at 5:30.