Tonbridge Twitterati....

The Tonbridge Twittersphere is active this morning after many of the town's twitterati enjoyed a lovely evening in the oak beamed lounge bar of the Rose and Crown, fittingly right in the heart of the old town. I must admit I was slightly dreading the evening, although curious to know what all the fuss was about. So with more than a little trepidation I ventured out all of the 50 yards from Mr. Books across the High Street and into the back entrance of the hotel. Well I didn't want all the fuss of a big fanfare welcome from the mysterious, anonymous host, @Tonbridgetweet up (to use her twitter handle.) There I've half given the game away by telling you that she is in fact a female. So that narrows it down to half the population at least. On arrival I ordered my first pint of the evening and, taking a large thirst quenching gulp, wondered were the heck everyone else was. I could have used this moment to back out gracefully, having made the effort, and make a hasty gettaway, but the barman obviously sensed that I was here for something and informed me that the tweetuppers were in the bar at the end of the restaurant. I have to confess that I've always thought it better to remain at least semi anonymous on twitter but, having met a handlful of them, I'm coming round to the view that there's no harm in meeting up once in a while. After all we all have at least one thing in common: that bizarre desire to tell the rest of the world what we're doing and what we're thinking at any one time; to give our "followers" snapshots into our own world. I personally find the whole business of blogging very liberating and, let's face it, we all like to get things off our chest once in a while and, this way at least, you might strike a chord with somebody out there and maybe they'll sympathise with you. So we all sat around in a big semi circle, rather awkwardly at first without the laptop or smartphone, and some fibre optic cable, between us. There were more than few longish pauses, the atmospshere somewhere between a gathering of new friends and a company conference on the first night. Within an hour or so most people were joking and sharing stories like old friends; the beer and wine helping to loosen our tongues of course. The Rose and Crown did us proud by bringing us lots of tasty snacks like chips, crisps, bowls of olives, bread and some really rather scrummy sausages on cocktail sticks. The hotel staff were understandably keen to keep the tweetuppers coming back. Perhaps they sensed that the group are actually quite influential of opinions in Tonbridge or, perhaps, they were just being nice. Either way the food was appreciated and saved me getting a burger and chips from the kebab shop on the way home which was my other plan. So would I go again? I hear a few of you ask. Probably yes, especially since I'm literally spitting distance away. Not that I'm planning to be spitting across the High Street! Anyway I must sign off now as, probably, no one is reading this any way. They're all on twitter! The only snag with twitter though is that you have to get everything into 140 characters. Where TonbridgeBlog has the advantage is that you can say it in 1,400 if you want to. So my twitter entry for the above might read something like: "Rose+Crown @tonbridgetweetup last nite g8 fun although slightly awkwrd at 1st. Fab food + gd company. See you all Feb" Damn it that's still too long to fit!