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.

    Zero gravity looks cool. But what about the thing no one likes to talk about? Yes, that is right: going to the bathroom. Zero gravity makes this everyday task quite a challenge. Astronauts have to be toilet-trained all over again.

    The Apollo astronauts raised themselves off the seat of their chairs and stuck a clear plastic bag to their back sides with sticky strips. A second astronaut watched closely to be sure no waste matter escaped the seal. (You would not want that stuff floating around the cabin!) When the deed was done, the astronaut cleaned up with a piece of plastic attached to the inside of the bag, removed the bag, dropped a disinfectant(消毒剂) pill in with the waste matter, and put the whole thing, sealed, into a special container.

    Donald W. Rethke, an engineer for Hamilton Standard Space Systems, developed a more private way to answer nature's call: the space toilet. It is somewhat like the kind of toilet one would find on commercial airplanes--with unique adaptations for zero gravity, of course. For instance, it has thigh bars that keep the astronaut from floating off the seat.

    The astronaut (male or female) defecates (排便) in a bag and urinates (排尿) in a hose. Solid and liquid wastes are kept separated because at least 85% of the urine is recycled and, yes, after careful filtration(过滤), used for drinking and other purposes. (Water is always in demand in space.) A vacuum sucks the waste materials into the toilet, where the waste is compacted into hamburger-like patties for easy storage. Although not exactly like an earthbound visit to the toilet, it is at the very least much more private than in the early days of space travel.

    Linda Eveans was my best friend—like the sister I never had. We did everything together: piano lesson, movies, swimming, and horseback riding.

    When I was 13, my family moved away, Linda and I kept in touch through letters， and we saw each other on special times, like my wedding and Linda's. Soon we were busy with children and moving to new homes, and we wrote less often. One day a card that I sent came back, stamped "Address Unknown". I had no idea about how to find Linda.

    Over the years, I missed Linda very much, I wanted to share happiness of my children and then grandchildren, And I needed to share my sadness when my brother and then mother died, There was an empty place in my heart that only a friend like Linda could fill.

    One day, I was reading a newspaper when I noticed a photo of a young woman who looked very much like Linda and whose last name was Wagman—Linda's married name. "There must be thousands of Wagmans." I thought, but I still wrote to her.

    She called as soon as she got my letter, "Mrs, Tobin!" she said excitedly, "Linda Evans Wagman is my mother." Minutes later I heard a voice that I recognized at once, even after 40 years. We laughed and cried and caught up on each other's lives. Now the empty place in my heart is filled. And there's one thing that Linda and I know for sure: we won't lose each other again!

    When you were at school, the last thing you probably wanted to do was spend your weekends going to work. There was homework to do, sport to play and fun to have. But our parents probably persuaded us to find a job to earn some money and get some life experience. When I was a teenager I had a paper round: delivering newspapers to people's homes. I then progressed to a Saturday job in a supermarket: stacking shelves and working at the checkout.

    Today in the UK you are allowed to work from the age of 13, and many children do take up part-time jobs. It's one of those things that are seen almost as a rite of passage (成人仪式). It's a taste of independence and sometimes a useful thing to put on your CV (简历). Teenagers agree that it teaches valuable lessons about working with adults and also about managing their money.

    Some research has shown that not taking up a Saturday or holiday job could be deleterious to a person later on. A 2015 study by the UK Commission on Employment and Skills found that not participating in part-time work at school age had been blamed by employer's organizations for young adults being ill-prepared for full-time employment, but despite this, recent statistics have shown that the number of schoolchildren in the UK with a part-time job has fallen by a fifth in the past five years.

    So, does this mean that British teenagers are now afraid of hard work? Probably not. Some experts feel that young people feel going out to work will affect their performance at school, and they are under more pressure now to study hard and get good exam results-and a good job in the long term. However, Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told BBC News that “Properly regulated (控制的) part-time work is a good way of helping young people learn skills that they will need in their working lives." In reality, it's all about getting the right balance between doing part-time work and having enough time to study and rest.

    Many of us think, wrongly, that the moon doesn't change. For example, the Tang Dynasty poet Zhang Ruoxu once wrote that "Generations have come and passed away; From year to year the moons took alike, old and new."

    However, a new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience shows that the moon is in fact slowly shrinking over time. For the study, a group of US scientists examined and analyzed thousands of photographs taken by the NASA orbiter Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (月球勘测轨道飞行器照相机) . They found that there were lots of faults (断层) on the surface of the moon. These faults were formed by recent movement on the moon.

    According to NASA, the moon is made up of pieces of rocks with a hot core (核) .The moon continued to expand as it was born. But in this process, it released energy and cooled down. Then it began to shrink, in a way comparable to the shrinking of a grape into a raisin (葡萄干) . Over the past several hundred million years, it has become 46 meters "skinnier". But due to its hard and rocky crust (外壳) . the moon's surface continues to push up, "Some of these quakes can be fairly strong around five on the Richter scale (里氏震级) ," said Thomas Watters, a senior scientist at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in the US.

    But does that mean the moon is a dangerous place that human shouldn't try to explore and live on in the future? Maybe not, reported the Telegraph, "This isn't anything to worry about. The moon may be shrinking, but not by much. It's not going anywhere," Watters comforted us.

    The new discovery proves that the idea that the moon is a dead, boring place is wrong. "We have been to the moon and we've done some great science, but there is still a lot we don't know. The moon is shrinking ­ we didn't really realize that until recently. It's a much more active and interesting place than we thought and we should explore that," NASA scientist Nathan Williams said.

    An 80-year-old man was sitting on the sofa in his house along with his 45-year-old son. Suddenly a crow (乌鸦) landed on their window.

    The father asked his son, "What is that?"

    The son replied, "That is a crow."

    After a few minutes, the father asked his son for the second time, "What is this?"

    The son said, "Father, I told you just now. It's a crow."

    After a little while, the father asked his son the same question for the third time, "What is this?"

    This time, the son said to his father in a low and cold tone, "It's a crow, a crow."

    After a moment, the father yet again asked his son for the fourth time, "What is this?"

    This time his son shouted at his father, "Why do you keep asking me the same question again and again? I have told you already, ‘IT IS A CROW'. Are you not able to understand this?"

    A minute later the father went to his room and came back with a diary, which he had kept since his son was born. On opening a page, he asked his son to read that page.

    Today my little son aged three was sitting with me on the sofa when a crow suddenly landed on the window edge. My son asked me 23 times what it was, and I replied him 23 times that it was a crow. I hugged him lovingly each time he asked me the same question. I didn't at all feel angry, but instead felt affection for my son.

    If your parents reach old age, do not look at them as a burden, but speak to them gently, and be kind to them. From today say this aloud, "I want to see my parents happy forever. They have cared for me ever since I was a little child. They have always showered me with love. I will take care of my old parents in the best way no matter how they behave."