Welcome to the home of Graham Robinson

One week down – Seventy-odd more to go

Sunday, February 22nd, 2009

The first week of engaged life has brought a number of wedding books, magazines and adverts into our humble abode. Most of it is good but some of the adverts are for dresses that are double our entire wedding budget.

Amy still doesn’t actually have a ring that fits on her finger, but she hasn’t quite turned into ‘Bridezilla’, as she calls it.

This Sunday we went to a beautiful hotel called the Legacy Botleigh for a wedding show. Everyone asked when the wedding was and the answer was ‘we’ve only been engaged a week’. Ah well, they won’t be getting money out of us just yet.

The hotel has a lovely garden that would look fantastic in photographs (hence why they let the shows happen there) and we’ve been trying to do some sums about it all. They certainly don’t have the most included in their wedding packages but the album would look very nice.

Another hotel we are looking at has a lot in the price, strangely enough including centrepieces, which I thought were too expensive to include free. We aren’t sure if it really has an outside though. Hard choices, if a little premature at this stage.

We’ve also been trying to blast through a few numbers. Fortunatly both our families aren’t exactly big and although we have a few friends there aren’t many that I’d feel close enough to bring to the actual ceremony. Money wise we’re looking at self funding it, anything else we come across might be a bonus, but we aren’t expecting it.

Is it really that modern to feel like we shouldn’t be asking parents for piles of cash to pay for these things? I’m not even sure whether or not we want a guest list! We’re toying the idea of just telling people to spend the money staying in the hotel and enjoying themselves. We have no room in our kitchen as it is; imagine if we got a new dinner set and another toaster. Hell, we’ve just got an Ikea within walking distance, I could have 5 toasters here in a couple of hours.

So I’m sure this will all be interesting. I’ll have to make an effort to blog how things are going. I know no-one reads this, but I’m sure it will be interesting to look back on once the day has gone by and see how we have paniced / lost hope / given up / decided on flowers with a spin-the-bottle game over the months.

p.s. How can I find a wedding photographer that costs £500 for two hours that supplies negatives (well a DVD seeing as they don’t use film anymore), yet the ones that cost £1750 don’t?

Putting a ring on her finger

Sunday, February 15th, 2009

What a great weekend!

We’ve spent Friday to Sunday at a lovely Hotel just outside Southampton. It was a very fancy hotel with a gorgeous restaurant and a spa (we looked at the member price of the spa and it was 4 figures per year!). We went on a Valentines day package with two days bed, breakfast and dinner, which was… mmmmmmmmm. The steak just fell apart and… mmmmmm.

Part of  the package included a bottle of champers, rose and chocolates on the pillow and we even both had a full body massage on Saturday.

Of course, the best part of the break came on Saturday morning. We’d come back up from Breakfast at about 10:30 to open presents. I opened Amy’s present to me then went to my bag to get mine. Hiding it behind my back I said that I hoped she liked ‘it’. I took a few steps closer before falling on one knee and pulling the box out. I then opened it and said that I loved her and would she marry me.

Poor Amy has had a trying week (she’s been fast-tracked onto a ship later this month, has had dental checkups, medicals, survival courses and even some fillings this week) so I got the benifit of surprising her. So much nicer when it is a surprise. She said ‘yes’, the rest is history!

Amy's engagement ring

I love snow

Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009

As I’m not driving to work I’m loving the snow. There is just so much of it!

Flickr – Snow – Feb 09

Photos

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

Below I mentioned we made hand made Christmas cards. I’ve now put those on Flickr as well as a few Christmas photos with the family in Milton Keynes.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediaguy/sets/72157612157047398/

Christmas cards

Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

Amy and I have just sealed up the eight hand made christmas cards we have made for my family but I’m not allowed to post the photos until those people have recieved them.

Gingerbread house

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008

Our first attempt at a gingerbread house is up on Flickr and ready to be eaten!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mediaguy/sets/72157610946504947/

Totalling up costs

Wednesday, November 12th, 2008

There are some things that I have that cost a certain amount per month. These things are normally good value but you just don’t want to total them up.

I’ve just realised that Napster, however good it is, has cost me £320. I could buy two ipods for that!

On another note I can’t wait for my iPod to break. iTunes is so bad now that I just can’t bear updating any of my music with the PC.

Not a great morning

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

Plenty of things have gone wrong this morning.

I put vista 64 bit edition on my computer on monday.It is very fast and a fantastic operating system. Trouble is that i now find that i cannot get drivers for the brand new printer we have.

Also i’ve been writing an application form that must be in tomorrow so I want it uploaded tonight so there is time for that to in wrong.

The only positive thing is that bloging from my phone seems to work.

Saying no to 0870

Tuesday, July 29th, 2008

Since I’ve changed to a mobile phone contact and have Skype on my computer I’ve been paying a bit more attention to 0870 numbers and how horrid they are.

These numbers are about three times the price of a normal call, doesn’t get included in BT or mobile free minutes and the companies make a profit by keeping you on hold through them.

Money saving expert has an update saying that 0870 numbers will soon be classed as premium rate, something that I am very much looking forward to, even if it is for the fact that you aren’t allowed to pay to be in a queue on a premium rate number. You never know, NTL might answer the phone quicker.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/phones/0870-say-no

But in the mean time there is http://www.saynoto0870.com. This site will let you find national rate and freephone numbers for 0870 numbers. Seeing as nearly everyone with a BT line gets these calls free the site is fantastic. 0800 numbers are also not normally free on a mobile so you can normally find a normal number for the freephone ones.

But the easiest thing I’ve found is to just find the overseas number. For example on the student loan website you can call a host of 0870 numbers, but just call +44 141 243 3660 for overseas users. Just remember to use 141 before it (according to the money saving expert site)

Turning pc on and off by mobile phone

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Achieving something good today…

I’ve been looking for a way to get access to the files on my PC without wasting power keeping my computer on 24/7. The easiest way to do this is to keep the PC off all the time and find a way of turning it on without being in front of it.

The way I achieved this was by

Turning on Wake on Lan on the computer
Forwarding port 7 on the router to my computer
Installing a PHP script on a webserver that sends a ‘Magic Packet’ that turns on the PC
Slightly modifying the script to ask for a password

And for turning off the computer

Installed Switch Off
Set Switch Off to start as a service
Turn on the web interface of Switch Off
Turn on authentication
Forward the port in Switch Off options to my computer on my router

So I can now grab my mobile phone and, with very little data, type in mywebsite.com/switchon and mywebsite.com/switchoff (obviously the real links are a bit deeper and hidden than that)