I agree with Frodofan a website is a lot of hard work but it can be very rewarding. I would recommend Geocities as that's what I use. It's free so you don't need to worry about paying.
My website has only just got it's first layout - which was actually made by someone else. Because for my site I had a coloured background and some white strips were placed on it (I made the lines in PSP and uploaded them to the pages). It was simple but enabled me to add to the site - which was easy as geocities does all the html for you. As I now have a proper layout I am now learning the very basic html so I can add things to the layout pages. Although I wished I had had a layout to start with, I think it helped to get my site in some sort of order first - rather than plunging into layouts, html AND a site all at once. I am very much a novice in site making but I will try and help you an dgive you hints and tips as you need them.
