Following last week’s tremendous gales when 60,000 people in Scotland have been left without electricity after power lines and wind turbines were brought down and winds of up to 165 mph recorded, I thought it was time that I checked my Policy Expert home insurance and see just what cover I had. Fortunately I seemed to be well covered, but as the renewal date was coming up, I thought that I would search around to see if I could find some cheap buildings insurance for my house and get comprehensive cover.

Getting cheap insurance is one thing, but you need the peace of mind that you’d be financially covered if damage occurred to your home. I think that it is pretty pointless getting cheap insurance if the cover is not designed to protect your actual property, i.e. the entire structure of the building including walls, windows and roof. That would also have to include all the permanent fixtures, such as a fitted kitchen, fitted bathroom suite etc., from damage from fire, flooding, falling trees, theft and vandalism. Searching the web for home insurance can be a minefield, but all it requires is carefully seeing just what is being covered and not taking the first, seemingly cheap quote that pops up.

Adding new pieces of furniture to your home is a wonderful way to display personal style and taste.  Choosing the right pieces to fit with what currently adorns your rooms is key to making a home design flow.

Buying designer furniture products from the best manufacturing companies is a great place to start.  Antonello is an Italian furniture company that has remained at the top of the designer furniture industry for many years.  With more than four decades of experience behind its exquisite line of contemporary furniture, Antonello produces pieces that stand the test of time, and also look great.

Antonello uses a large variety of materials to create its designer furniture pieces.  Shoppers will notice the large array of unique metals including aged wood and sparkling crystal that sets this furniture apart from other products.  With the company motto of ‘less is more’, Antonello remains true to the minimalist approach and efficiency of its designs.

The effect of this minimalist approach results in elegant, modern furniture that is suited for almost any office or home setting.  Antonello Italia’s furniture consists of pieces such as designer dining tables and designer mirrors.  The stylish mirrors in particular are beautifully shaped to complement any decorating style in any room.

Antonello’s large range of designer dining tables is understated but sophisticated.  Their approach to the creation of their dining tables has equal emphasis being placed on appearance and comfort. 

Antonello is the top choice for designer mirrors and designer dining tables.

I was with some mates the other night having a meal and a modest glass of wine when one guy began a rant about things that had driven him to distraction on his journey from a business appointment. This got us all thinking about the things that make us tear out our hair and the list was quite interesting. These included; tailgating, speeding, using mobile phones while driving (my gripe), but the one that surprised me was the one that came up and most agreed it was annoying, this was the failure to give signals on roundabouts.

Of course the usual one from someone was the poor old HGV crawling past another lorry at 2 miles per hour and taking 2 or 3 miles to do it! However, without doubt the daddy of them all was using headlights or running lights in daylight.  Those that were for, or against, could not see any sense or justification in the other’s point of view. I was in the for camp,  not routinely in the daytime in good visibility, but the motorists who drive without lights at all or on side lights only when it is foggy, pouring with rain or at dusk. They can see me for sure because I have my dipped headlights on in poor visibility or rain and as soon as the light begins to fail, but it doesn`t mean I may easily see them, I think it should become law. What do you think?

I cannot be sure what Christmas is going to bring this year, I’m not referring to presents, I was thinking more on the lines of where will I be, at home or away? Christmas at home when there are no children around and you no longer have near relatives can be a bit of a chore don’t you think? Preparing meals watching the usual stuff on the TV and passing away the days by some leisurely walking perhaps, relaxing, but is this what you really want?

Well for me it is an emphatic no! What I like to do over the Christmas and New Year period is go away to a nice cold place with lots of snow and fun, you’ve guessed it a Christmas and New Year Skiing holiday in the Austrian Alps or the Tyrol. So I am searching through the ski holiday pages to find a deal in a nice Austrian hotel where I can enjoy the spirit of Christmas in its true meaning, celebrate New Year in Style and get in some skiing at the same time. Wish you were coming as well? Ok see you in the New Year.

Digging out cars, slipping to and from work and spending time on railway trains down to London, has nearly send me crazy over the last few days and it all came to a head when the central heating boiler decided to shut down on the coldest night of the year. Time to get away to somewhere warm I thought.

So I spent time over the weekend looking through newspapers and travel brochures for ideas and I found plenty, but not really what I was looking for in particular. So I decided to do what I normally do in these circumstances and search through the internet pages. Guess what, I stuck gold immediately by hitting the virginholidayscruises.co.uk website and found myself a first class fly cruise taking in my two favourite places, New York and the Caribbean, shopping and sunshine all in one go!  With this trip you spend one night in New York before joining NCL’s Norwegian Jewel for a 10-night Caribbean cruise, calling at San Juan, St Thomas, Antigua, St Martin and Tortola.  Prices are very realistic and they start at around £899 per person, for a January 11th departure, which suited me and the price included flights from Heathrow. Think about me in January when I am relaxing on the sundeck, I’ll send you a card if I can remember, perhaps from Antigua!

A couple of friends called in to see us last week and as you do we had a drink or two, the quality of wine that can be bought now is so much better than it used to be that it just seems to slip down without you noticing and before we realised, two or three bottles had gone! Well the outcome of this was that my two friends were in no fit state to drive home and we suggested that they stay for the night. No problem you may think, well think again because we did not have a spare bed! The problem was overcome by me “dossing” on the floor and my partner sleeping in the single room and our guests in our bed!

This set me thinking; just what do you do if you want to put up a couple of guests for a night? The simple answer to that is to buy a sofa bed which can be a useful addition in a room such as a conservatory and double up as a bed when required. Because of the change in living habits and the demands on interior space, items such as sofa beds have become a much more important element in how we plan our homes. In addition to providing an aesthetic quality to your environment, furniture such as a sofa bed has to serve a functional purpose every day both as a sofa and a bed. We soon found what we needed when Iogged onto an online bedding specialist the sofa was quickly delivered to us and now resides in our conservatory waiting for friends to drop in and drink too much of our fine wine!

I am currently helping my friend choose flowers for her upcoming wedding it’s not going to be an extravagant affair so the flower choices need to be simple but still very pretty and quite traditional. I never realised that there were so many options for wedding flowers Glasgow, or how much time, thought and preparations went into them. Not only do you have to think about colour choices, to make sure they go with your colour scheme but also the types of plants, as some are not available all year round.

Luckily because this wedding will be just at the end of summer, many great British varieties are available which look much more traditional, the colour scheme is pale blue and white so I have been looking into flowers that fit that. Which is harder than you may think and on top of that there are so many varieties of flower and foliage which is used to ‘pad’ out arrangements.

The number of different arrangements needed for wedding flowers Glasgow varies to what you want, for example for the ceremony you can have the brides bouquet and even smaller ones for the bridesmaids. The groom, groomsmen, ushers and immediate family members can also have flowers for their lapels and that’s before you start to think whether you need any to decorate where the ceremony will be held. Then you need to also think about where the reception will be held, decorations and arrangement for the tables and around, there’s is so much I never even thought!

Many of us car lovers would love to be a motoring journalist. Why not? It gives access to so many drives and dining activities in exotic destinations; the envy of the lifestyle beat. It is all part of making the customer, in this case the motoring journalist, feel good. You get to drive many different cars, which is akin to trying different restaurants for a foodie, for free. The only expectation is that a story has to be published sometime soon or usually, even sooner! But I have often wondered, does a motoring journalist have to be able to drive? Not necessarily but it helps to know how because it expands the point of contact with the product, and thus the reach of the story.

I have known some trained journalists with the motoring sections of the broadsheets who did not know how to drive but were quick, adept and streetwise in editing industry press releases; they were also pretty good at the eating part of the job as well! Of course these journo’s will not make expert viewers of the product that they are reviewing, but they are so versatile that they can be shifted from one section to another at the editor’s discretion. Cars are dynamic objects and fair comment should be rendered on how one looks, feels and drives. A car is also a social object, created by its marketers, so subjective perceptions on social relevance and standing have to enter the picture. All things being equal I think that I will stick to my work in book publishing!

Whichever way you look at it, and whatever your political leanings, yesterdays budget delivered a highly political Budget that postponed the pain of spending cuts until well after polling day. I as saw it, listening to it with a few friends, the chancellor made a combined a raid on the rich with the theft of Conservative ideas and faced with a record deficit and an election expected in six weeks’ time; Alistair Darling delivered a no-frills financial statement that made a virtue of necessity, so how will you be affected?

Those that do not drive a car and just use public transport think that they are immune from the tax rise on fuel, but this is an area that impacts on every area of modern life, an increase in transport costs means that just about everything that we touch is affected. I’m not a cider drinker but those that are will be less than pleased by the 10 per cent hike above inflation with a higher £2 per litre levy on super-strength cider.

Naturally if you do not presently own your own home but are thinking of buying one now, you will be bouncing off the walls at the news that first time buyers will not pay any stamp duty on houses costing under £250.000. There is a snag here though, you have to be a first time buyer and that means that you must never have owned a home before that includes your partner as well, not just here but anywhere in the world as well!

Anyone working will have to pay more income tax because allowances for tens of millions of tax payers will be frozen and it is thought that it will amount to £48 a year for all basic rate taxpayers. Although the government do not believe it is a tax increase you must make up your own mind. Whoever is elected after the next election, thought to be around May 6th, the final reckoning of the financial crisis will only begin to hit in 13 months’ time, when spending cuts will have to be made.

My Nan used to play bingo down at the cinema, I think it was the Odeon, but I might be wrong. What I do remember though is the enthusiasm when she went to her twice weekly meetings to play with friends, come rain or shine. Imagine my surprise then when I found my partner using my computer to play online bingo at 888Ladies.com which she says is the one that she really likes.

Now as you all may know I am a nut when it comes to online casino sites and I usually get to play a hand or two of online poker when I am away or get the odd moment at home. Suitably impressed by what I saw the other night I downloaded 888Ladies (you can play if you’re a man!) and I must say that I was in for a huge surprise. For starters I got a free fiver and you don’t pick those up every day, plus 150% Cash Match bonus on my first deposit, with a 50% bonus offered on all subsequent deposits. They run massive monthly guaranteed jackpot games and I found their bingo blog section fun. With 888Ladies being a pleasant site, together with a great mix of slots to go at as well, it’s no wonder that it is so popular. I also found the 888 Ladies Bingo to be a pleasant site and the chat room was fun. I can understand why my partner said “why go anywhere else?”If you are looking for a bingo site which has everything all under the one bingo roof, then I can tell you that 888 Ladies will probably be for you with their free bingo games, big jackpots and great prize promotions.