Not one of those groovy hippies, I’m more a wannabe hippy who tends to have an opinion on pretty much everything

Well for Valentine’s Day i would love to take the other half out but I’m definitely not paying double the price for a table or a meal just because of a supposed special day.

Anyway i have booked a table for two at the two rivers restraunt which is located in The Deep at Hull, hopefully we will get a table near one of the aquarium’s.

One of my local pubs is doing a meal for 2 for £60 which i think is a little bit pricey.

It will probably take us just under 2 hours to get there, i have the table booked for 8.30, which means we need to be going for 6.30 ath the latest.

A few months back I was looking at ski holidays, but the recent bad weather has really made me think twice. Snow is ok if it’s just here for a few days and then its fully melted, but the snow we’ve had throughout December 09 and January 10 has really tested my patience. We nearly ran out of grit which resulted in a lack of local roads been gritted, and country roads have been missed completely. Gas supplies ran to probably an all time low with only 3 days remaining, this was due to people using more gas to heat their house during this cold period where we were lucky to see above 0oc and i even saw -7.0oc.

I reckon we probably had the snow for at least 1 solid month, and to be honest it really started to grate on me after the second week. Driving anywhere was difficult as there was a lack of clear roads. Every shop you went into had wet floors and door mats where more like mini lakes. My toes where constantly cold whether inside or outside. Walking around was even a pain as black ice was everywhere and you where always getting damp or falling on your back.

I was surprised this week to see that most of had melted mainly cost the temperatures where slightly warmer around the 5oc mark. This has really put me off skiing as I was so grumpy, so whatever ski deals are thrown my way I don’t think I’ll be going skiing any time soon

We’re still contemplating the idea of a cruise for the honeymoon and while the Oasis of the Seas does look good, I have found an even better deal (which I haven’t actually got round to telling the girlfriend about yet…). Basically, I guess in an attempt to pull in more custom, some cruises are offering free ale for the entire time you’re onboard, instead of making you pay over inflated prices at the bars. To be honest, I thought cruises were all inclusive but unless you are happy with endless Fanta or cups of tea you’ll have to shell out. Now, I know it’s a honeymoon and that and I want to be on my best behaviour but it got me wondering just how much alcohol I’d need to put away to make the cost worthwhile? The costs start at approx £20 per night for the all you can drink beer package, £30 a night for cheapo shots and £45 for more up market shots – that’s on top of the cost of the cruise. Now, I can drink with the best of them but the thought of having to, just to justify the upfront cost doesn’t seem all that appealling to me. And knowing my luck I’ll fork out for the ale and spend all my time craving JD & coke, which of course I’ll have to pay seperately for. The chances are that after 5 days of solid drinking you are going to be desperate for a break and you’ll probably ending up drinking less than you’ve paid for. Sometimes these cruise deals seems like the bargain of the century but look a bit closer and you find out that they’re not quite the steal they appear to be. Oh well, back to the bargain hunting….

Historically, people the world over travelled on the left side of the road. Like today, most of the world’s population was right-handed, and it was easier to mount a horse from the left, as well as draw one’s sword against enemies in violent feudal societies. Cars came along and they originally had the driving position in the centre, to the left, or right. Having a left hand drive car in London has a number of advantages, the most important one is that they are usually cheaper to buy, particularly pre-owned cars.

Finding a left hand drive car in London is not very difficult but it will pay you to go to a dealer that specialises in selling and maintaining left hand drive cars. The left hand drive cars London dealership will be able to offer a variety of cars, from every day cars to prestige with options on petrol or diesel powered manual or automatic gear change.

Whilst it could be new to you, getting around in left hand drive cars on the right side of the road is every bit as safe as driving on the left. All you have to do is take the car out with the car dealer, who will happily give you tips, within a short space of time you’ll soon enjoy cruising the highways and byways of your chosen destination and be happy at the money saved for you by the left hand drive vehicles London specialist.

Although I have lived and worked in London for a number of years, my work takes me to lots of weird and wonderful places. Most of these places I have never heard of (the old cliché about Londoners not knowing anything North of London certainly applies to me!), this left me with a problem; how will I find local services when I travel to a new place? Well the answer for me was City Visitor.

City Visitor is a local business search for the UK, sort off similar to Yell.com but a lot more user friendly and seems to give you more options when searching. Simply log onto the website and type in the type of service you need and the location, I normally look to see where my hotel is and check for restaurants and pubs nearby.

The handy thing about City Visitor is that it gives you a map and circles your chosen service, that may not seem that impressive, but it also tells you where the nearest railway station is and can give you directions from any other location (sort of like Auto Route). All this information can be printed and taken with you on your travels.

City visitor also allows you to book and check room availability of thousands of hotels in the UK and book flights to anywhere in the world.

There is one little problem that I found with City Visitor and come to think of it all of the other search facilities out there, I cannot find a local Head Shop!!! It’s only a small problem and hopefully in the future they will add it, but rest assured that if there is a Head Shop in the random place I end up in, I will find it!

City Visitor is a great website for people who need to find local services, whether they live in the area or are travelling to it for the first time.

As I enjoy doing a fair amount of wondering around the country in my spare time and my job increasingly requires me to remain connected to the internet to retrieve e-mails and share documents (talking of collaboration has anyone got a Google Wave invite going?). I’ve only heard good things about it so far, I have my doubts as to whether people will place all there data in Googles hands.  Anyway I now need to consider sorting myself out so I’m able to access the internet whilst I’m on my travels.

I’ve been looking over many Mobile Broadband packages for the most part they seem to demand a 12, 18 or 24 month commitment. The longer you comit to, the better bandwidth tariff they seem to give you. I guess because they’re sitting comfortably in the knowledge that your going to be paying them for a long ass time. The only other option would be to look at tethering my iPhone 3G alas I have the same long term commitment problems..

Personally I’ve never liked long term commitments like that which means the options become somewhat limited, the best I’ve been able to find is with three who allow you to buy a USB Dongle/Modem for 9.99 with a maximum contract length of just 1 month. They offer 5GB of data transfer for 15 on speeds upto 3.6mbps. As far as I can tell this is the best deal, unless anyone has found something better?

I am  having a weekend away with the misses, leaving tomorrow. After looking around at all the possible destinations we decided it would be nice to head over to the South West and visit the City of Bristol. We are hoping for some nice weather! So I’ve booked a couple of tickets on the trainline website, got a good deal and arranged a hotel in the City Centre.

Our plan is to do a bit of shopping I’ve always fancied seeing the Clifton Suspension Bridge as well as visiting the Georgia House. Besides those bits hopefuly I will be having a weekend of chilling out and having a few beers.

This morning the confirmation paperwork for the cruise holiday I mentioned a few weeks ago landed on our doormat, and with the day off work (man flu) I had nothing better to do than flick through a load of brochures, excursion timetables and deck plans. Fun times.

Opening the big packet of info from Virgin Holidays was a bit of a surprise at first: Mrs. Hippy & I had done most of our planning around Mediterranean cruises and I thought we’d settled on one of those, so I was a bit confused to see a bunch of Royal Caribbean brochures spilling out into my lap. Turns out the “C” in “RC” isn’t mandatory, and the ship we’re sailing on, “Independence of the Seas”, actually cruises the med.

The brochures & leaflets were boring but I did spend an entertaining afternoon plotting our route on Google Maps, so the second stage of Operation: Cruise hasn’t been a total wash. I’m almost beginning to look forward to this ridiculously expensive boat ride.

Shame on me. Mere days after slating Mrs. Hippy for furniture related torture she lays out a four figure sum on taking me on holiday. I’m a bad, bad man.

It seems we’re going on a cruise, partly because I like water but mainly because she can get some kind of two for one deal from Virgin Cruise Holidays through work, and we both like the idea of seeing lots of places in a single holiday. I’m a little concerned about how I’ll deal with Daily Mail reading retirees every day but herself assures me it’s all very egalitarian and unfussy on board these days, so long as one doesn’t piss in the lido pool or throw cigarettes off the side. Best keep it to four pints a night max then.

It looks like our options are either a Dubai cruise or floating around the Mediterranean, which kind of has me torn. I’d rather spend time in France, Spain, Italy etc than the Middle East, but something about the crassness of Dubai combined with my perceptions of cruising as a holiday for people with more money than sense (not to mention taste) makes Dubai seem like a natural choice.

Anyone been on one of these things? Any thoughts?