New to Web Design and wide-eyed

Hi all

I recently left my job in the city (banking) and whilst sitting at home twiddling my thumbs thought I'd try and teach myself something new.

For the last couple of weeks I have been teaching myself HTML and CSS and am trying my hand at creating a website (something I have been meaning to do for years). Not wanting to use some of the pre-defined website templates out there I decided i wanted to discover how to do all this for myself, hence the crash course in HTML and CSS.

I have also found a couple of books really helpful one of them being "Web Design - visual lessons for online success" from the folks at Web Designer mag. Lots of helpful tutorials.

I've just posted a query/plea for help under the "Website Design and Layout" catergory as I am struggling to understand whether i need to use a CMS to add a forum or blog to my website (and if so which one).

Anyway, enough waffle, I'm glad to be on board and good luck to anyone out there who, like me, is new to all this.

Regards