Wonderful holiday cottages across England, Wales and Northern Ireland are available. When you choose your next holiday cottage, the following may strike your eyes.

    Large holiday cottages for special occasions

    We have over 30 cottages for eight or more people. These are great for celebrations with friends and family. You could head to Devon and stay in one of the county's most important houses, Shute Barton, where we can even provide details of the local cook that can come to the cottage and cook a delicious meal to make your stay even more special. One of our newest cottages is Thorington Hall in Suffolk, and it's the largest in our collection. If you fancy something a little bit different, you can visit the Lighthouse Keeper's Cottage.

    Dog friendly cottages In Cornwall

    Cornwall is a great place for dog walking with miles of coastline and beaches waiting to be explored and our dog friendly holiday cottages are on the doorstep on some of these places. We share just a selection of our dog friendly cottages across Cornwall. Click here to see the full range of dog friendly cottages in Cornwall.

    Easter bank holiday cottage

    We have cottages perfect for a gathering with family or friends if you're looking for some peaceful time away. You could spend the Easter bank holiday weekend in a holiday cottage on the beautiful coast around Cornwall or Pembrokeshire.

    Songbird Hideaway

    This cosy heart-warming cottage is the perfect romantic retreat, situated near the hamlet of Penrhos and close to the town of Pwllheli, featuring appealing views towards Cardigan Bay. Couples can escape the busyness of their everyday lifestyle and enjoy the delights of this compact yet beautifully presented accommodation.

    Dogs can tell how other dogs are feeling from the way their tails are wagging(摇摆)，according to researchers who monitored the animals' heart rate as they watched dogs' movies. The Italian team found that dogs had higher heart rates and became more anxious when they saw others wag their tails more to the left，but not when they wagged more to the right, or failed to wag at all.

    The curious form of communication is probably not intentional, or consciously understood, but is instead an automatic behavior that arises from the structure of the brain, said Giorgio. “It's not something they clearly and exactly understand,” Giorgio told The Guardian. “It's just something that happens to them.”

    Giorgio traces the effect back to the way the two halves of the brain process different experiences. In a previous study, his team showed that when a dog had a positive experience, activity rose in the left side of the brain, bringing about more tail wagging to the right. Or else more tail wagging to the left. The effect is barely visible to the human eye because dogs tend to wag their tails too fast, but it can be seen with slow motion video, or in some larger types.

    In the latest study, the researchers wanted to find out whether the direction of tail wagging had any effect on other dogs. To get an answer, they fitted dogs with vests that recorded their heart rates, and played them movies of other dogs wagging their tails one way and then the other. To ensure the dogs reacted only to tail wagging, and not appearance? They repeated the experiment with dogs that appeared only as shadows.

    “When dogs saw other dogs wagging their tails to the right, there was quite a relaxed reaction and no evidence of an increased heart rate. But when the wagging was to the left we saw an increase in heart rate and a series of behaviors typically associated with stress, anxiety and being more watchful, “Giorgio said. The anxious animals held their ears up, breathed, and kept their eyes wide open. The study appears in the latest issue of Current Biology.

    I was working the overnight shift in a remote hospital in the Rocky Mountains. Late in the evening, a young African teenager was brought into the emergency department. He lived at sea level and had never been in the mountains. After skiing all day, he felt really ill. Everyone assumed it was altitude sickness.

    He was sweating and had abdominal (腹部的) pain. His heart rate increased. We sent off his lab work, and his blood sugar came back at almost 600 — normal is less than 100. His platelets (血小板), necessary for stopping bleeding, came in at 10,000; they should have been over 150,000. I did an ultrasound of his abdomen, and it looked like his belly was full of blood. This wasn't altitude sickness. And in the short time I'd been trying to figure out what was wrong, he was getting sicker. The friends he was traveling with were terrified, and rightly so.

    The mystery was finally solved with an old-fashioned microscope. When we looked at his blood, we saw some sickled (镰形的) red blood cells. That's how we were able to diagnose sickle cell trait. If you have sickle cell trait — which means you got the sickle cell gene from just one parent instead of two — you have no symptoms at low altitude, but high altitude can sometimes cause the red blood cells to turn into sickle shapes and take oxygen from vital organs. This teenager didn't know he had it, but the effect of the altitude on his blood cells was so extreme that after just a short time in the mountains, he suffered great pain.

    He needed platelets immediately, but we didn't have enough at the remote hospital. And there was a snowstorm, so the medical helicopters couldn't fly. It was a scary night. Just as we were abandoning all hope, we met an ambulance that drove halfway up from the city with blood products and transferred him to the city hospital for emergency surgery. The story has a happy ending: He recovered fully.

    Charlie studied in a famous college for four years. He studied hard and did well in all his subjects. He hoped to become a good teacher. This year he left the college and began to work in a middle school. He likes his students and is strict with them. He does his best to make his classes lively and interesting.

    One day he carefully explained a chemical reaction to the students of Grade 2 in the chemistry lab.

    “Be careful, everyone,” he said loudly. “Before I make the experiment, there're twenty five atoms of carbon (碳原子), but after I finish it, there're twenty four atoms of carbon left!”

He stopped to watch the classroom and hoped his students would go on explaining it. But the young men looked at each other and nobody answered him. He had to ask,

    “What happens? What makes the atom lost?”

    The classroom was very quiet and none of the students looked at their teacher.

    “Who can tell us where it has gone?”

    Suddenly a soft voice came from the back row, “We did not see anybody leave the lab!”

    While IQ (Intelligence Quotient) tells you how smart you are. EQ (Emotional Quotient) tells you how well you use your smartness. Professor Salovery, the psychologist who created the term, EQ, says that it is IQ that gets you hired but it is EQ that gets you promoted.

    Supported by his research, he suggested that when predicting future successes, a person's brainpower, as measured by IQ tests, might actually matter less than a person's character, or EQ. Professor Salovery may be correct. For example, have you ever wondered why some of the best and smartest students in your class end up failing exams? Perhaps it is because of their EQ. People often make the mistake of thinking that EQ is the opposite of IQ. It is not. Although it is hoped that people have both high EQs and IQs, there is little doubt that those with low EQs have a hard time surviving in life.

    For a long time, researchers discussed if a person's IQ could be raised. The geneticists said no, while the social scientists said yes. Furthermore, the social scientists said that it was possible to improve a person's EQ, particularly in terms of "people skills", such as understanding and communication.

    Recently, a professor released the findings of a study on senior high school students. When some normal students were introduced to some disabled students, they found that afterwards they were more willing to help people in difficulties. At the same time, there was a marked change in the disabled students' attitudes. They became more positive about their disabilities and were more eager to try new things. People with high EQs often have positive attitudes towards life and are open to different ideas, so they tend to be more creative in their thinking. Please remember that having a high IQ is helpful but having a high EQ might even be more helpful.

    "Mummy, I don't know what to play with." Steve interrupts his mother, who is talking to a friend, for the fourth time. "You've got a room full of toys!" his mother says, impatiently. In fact it is the jumble of toys which is to blame for four-year-old Steve's lack of interest in his dolls, cars and stuffed (packed) animals. Each morning he tips out three washing baskets of toys all over his floor, listlessly pulls out something and shortly after is standing at his mother's desk or following her into the kitchen saying: "Mummy, I am bored."

    A family therapist (心理医生) explains why children lose interest when they have a whole "toy shop" at home: "According to their brain development, little children are not in a position to judge the quality of a variety of things at once. There is always just one favorite toy for the moment. All the rest is left lying about." What can parents do to stop their children from being oversupplied with toys? Under no conditions simply make something disappear without the child's knowledge. If he/she takes no more notice of a toy, a parent can ask if it can be stored or given away. Be warned though the child will always say he/she wants it then! A talk with relatives and friends may also help. Lyn is the mother of four-year-old Jessie, and we like her way. A small set of shelves in her child's room holds the toys and books that are the current (at present) favorites. When it seems to her that her daughter is tired of these toys, they put them away in a box together and select some other toys from a cupboard in another room. The box of "old" toys goes into the cupboard. When her child says she is "bored", they also get something from her cupboard - it may be something she has had for some time but because she hasn't seen it for a while it is almost like a new toy.

    Some favorite toys stay out all the time, and there is collection of dolls which sits in the corner, but in this way Lyn has found that she has fewer toys to put away at the end of the day and her daughter always has something "fresh" to play with.