Naquada

Sponsored Post. In this age of cutting costs, scrimping and saving, and just saving those extra pennies, you may want to look at your webhosting. There are so many out there that really, picking the right one is a bit of a nightmare.

Web Hosting Choice is a free research guide to help you pick the  right web host for personal or business hosting. The site lists the top 10 hosts on its front page, which are rated based on affordability, reliability, uptime and tech support, the cheapest, most reliable etc being at the top of the list. Unfortunately the prices are all listed in dollar, which, although it doesn’t really matter in the world of the internet, I suspect that these are all US based hosting suppliers.

There is also an advanced search option that allows you to pick and choose what you are looking for. Monthly Cost, Setup Fee, Bandwidth, Diskspace, Database type etc can all be searched on, and check boxes for options such as PHP, SSH, Cold Fusion etc can also be picked to hone down your hosting choice.

At the moment the list of included (or searchable) suppliers seems a little bit limited, but with the ability to include or ask for inclusion of additional suppliers hopefully that will change.

I’d like to see the prices in your local currency (not just dollars), given that there are some UK hosting services in there, and I’m coming in from the UK, it doesn’t make sense to show me those in dollars.

It’s a good service, and useful to at least be aware of whats out there, have I heard of any of the hosting suppliers? well.. very few (three to be exact), but maybe that’s a positive, maybe its time to open your eyes to what hosting services are hidden out there by using Web Hosting Choice

This weekend is the 37th International Magic Convention in London. It’s one of my favorite magic conventions.

Previously I would have covered it all on this blog, but as you know I now run MagicConventionGuide.com, so all the updates as they happen will be posted over there in the International Magic Convention live blog.

I’d like to also thank the Macmillans for their help in reporting this years event, and of course, if you want your convention reported on..

Let us know!!

Happy Birthday sweetheart… Everyday you bring more and more love and enjoyment into my life, I hope that I can always be the present that you always wanted..

All My Love..

x

Today’s my birthday.. now its a little worrying that I’m err.. 36

But, I got a fantastic new jacket and dark shirt (with sparkly bits in it!) from my wife.

We also decided to have a wonderful evening in with some of our new wedding plates and cutlery.

The table was lit by some lovely new candlesticks that we also got as wedding gifts..

Nothing could have been better than spending my birthday at home, with my wife, surrounded by gifts our friends and family gave us..

Today I’ve been married to my gorgeous beautiful wife for one month today.

The last few weeks have flown past, and it only seems like yesterday that we were walking back up the aisle, and heading out of the church as husband and wife.

I still think myself very very lucky to have a wife like Michelle, and we are very much two halves of the same person. We think the same thoughts, we say the same things, we just know everything the other one is thinking.

It’s not often you can find someone who is the other half of you, I think how lucky I am every day..

So last night was Halloween, because we’ve only just got back from Honeymoon we gave the normal Halloween Party at Clearwell caves a miss this year.

Instead we did a family party, I couldn’t get any contact lenses in time so I dug out the make-up for the old man again (I did this for a 80’s party as well a while back).

The make-up this time took a lot less time, given that I’d done it before, but I did add some beard material, which rather than a single stick on beard, was in fact, individual fibres of grey hair, all loveingly stuck onto my face by hand.

Michelle also dug out her costume from last years halloween party, they completely covered up our tans from the honeymoon, and quite a few of our relatives didn’t recognise me, but it was good fun.

We arrived back yesterday to a very very cold and foggy Gatwick..

It’s a big shock to have spent the last two weeks in 38 degrees to be met with -5 degrees at the airport!

We spent our honeymoon on the island of meerufenfushi, in the Maldives. It was heaven, and I don’t think I’ve quite ever been so relaxed and chilled out as I was there, especially have my new wife by my side.

Meeru Island resort, which is basically the whole island, is quite a small island, only 500 meters across, and just under 1km long. We stayed in a Jacuzzi Water Villa, which meant that our villa was out on a pier over the sea, and that we had steps going down off the back of our accomodation into the sea (oh and of course a Jacuzzi!).

Meerufenfushi is in the Maldives north atoll, and as its within the reef, the sea was quite shallow, even at high tide, in the evenings when the sea was low and flat as a mill pond, hundreds of fish would gather around the steps of our villa, and the piles that our accomodation sat on, we spent many evenings with cocktails watching ‘fish cam’ dangling our feet over the edge. We could watch the manta rays, sting rays, shark, and other tropical fish gathering and swimming around in the water below.

In the evenings, we’d walk around the island to one of the bars to watch the sun go down whilst sipping more cocktails (there’s a theme here!!), it was just fantastic..

We won’t bore you with all our ‘holiday snaps’ but if you do want to see them, they are all on flickr

So, the wedding is over, we’re now married..

Which means that we can sit back, relax, and enjoy some well earned time off!!

We have a week off work now, and then we’re off to the Maldives for two weeks..

Getting back at the end of October..

It’s going to be quite a change weather wise, from the rain, and cold, to the hot humid weather of the Indian Ocean..

I’ll see you in about a month!!

Yesterday, Heckfield place let us plant a tree in the grounds of heckfield place.

It was something that we always wanted to do. When we first looked at Heckfield place (which actually was quite by accident) as a wedding reception venue, they told us how they were trying to replant a lot of the trees that were once there.

We decided that we wanted to have a tree there, a tree that would grow, along with us, and our married life, and something we could go back to, and see, as we grew older to remind us of our wedding.

We expected to plant our tree someplace out of the way, a corner, or someplace in the woods, but Robert, the head gardener let us plant it pretty much slap bang in the middle of the lawn. If you go to Heckfield place, and look out of the patio doors at reception, towards the bottom of the lawn you will see a red maple type tree.

Thats our tree, surrounded by green grass and trees.

We planted it after our guests had left on the sunday, it was wet, raining and a bit chilly, but it was worth it, as, Heckfield place said, we are now part of Heckfield places history.

Yesterday Michelle and I got married, it was a fabulous day, and it just raced by, when people tell you it will be the shortest day of your life, believe them.

As well as shooting past so quickly, it is the day that I think will stay with me in my memory for as long as I live.

I’m so lucky to have Michelle in my life, and now, of course to have her as my wife.

The day was everything we had hoped for, and I hope that those who came, also enjoyed it.

The weather just about held, it was cold, and a bit windy at the church, but no rain!!

I will never forget seeing Michelle walking down the aisle to me, and yes, I cried.. I was reasonably ok until we sang ‘I Vow to Thee my Country’ and then that was it!

We had a few photos taken at the Church, (St Michael & St Mary Magdalene in Bracknell) and then headed back to Heckfield place for the reception.

The marque looked amazing, even better than we’d ever hoped it would, and the staff at Heckfield place were just so helpful, and bent over backwards for us.

There are so many people we’d like to thank, and so many photos (most of which you can find here), but our suppliers were:

Cake Topper by Artlocke Designs, Wedding Cars by Christophers Cars. Wedding Disco by HTG Events. Wedding Invitations by Bride & Groom Direct. Photography by Shaun Edwards Photography, Magic during the Wedding Breakfast, we had the honour of having Pat Page, (thanks Simon Drake!!). Wedding Suits were supplied by Anthony Blay in Wokingham, at extremely short notice after a wedding suit shop in maindenhead decided to screw up! Michelles Wedding Dress from Confetti in Wokingham. Wedding flowers and Marquee Flowers by Moutan Flowers in Odiham. Kevin Fitzsimmons sang Frank Sinatra songs after the speeches, Heckfield place for the venue.

If you want to see the video, you can see it here. (thanks to my new brother in law, Ramon!), thanks to Jeff McBride for sending us a wonderful message that was read during the speeches,

Of course we’d also like to thank our parents, Michelles Mum (my mother in law!) for the wonderful cake, My sister and Mum for the place name cookies. My best men, the bridesmaids, page boy, our friends, family and everyone for just making the day so special for us.

I am sure there are other things I’ve forgotten, but for me, my new wife, and how much I love her, is something I will never forget..