If you can't wait until the summer for your sunshine fix, why not fly off on a winter break? Here are some great deals for all budgets.

    1. ST LUCIA

    The beachside resort(度假胜地)of St James's Club in Morgan Bay is fairly quiet—the local market is nearly 5 kin away—but it has six bars, six restaurants and four outdoor pools. There are plenty of water sports, you can travel through the rainforest, go on a jeep trip or enjoy dolphin-Spot-ting. Average temperature in March is 27℃.

THE DEAL:A seven-nightstay with flights from Gatwick for 1,429pp. From March 1.

    2. GOA

    With an average February temperature of 26℃, scenic Goamakes for a warm winter get away. In the village of Arpora, the Resorte Marinha Dourada is a 10-minute walk from the clear beach—the hotel provides transfers for guests. Alternatively, relax by the outdoor pool and have a drink at one of the hotel's two bars. A visit toArpora's lively Saturday night market is also recommended. Go bird-watching, beating on thelake, or fishing.

    THE DEAL: 10 nights' bedand breakfast with flights from Manchester for 1,157pp. From February 18.

    3. DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

    Bayahibe is a beautiful fishing village on the shores of theCaribbean and it is also the Dominican Republic's premier scuba-diving destination. There are around 20 dive sites just off its coast. Enjoy golf, spas, watersportsand large outdoor pools. If you simply want to relax, the CataloniaGran Dominicus hotel is right on a pure white sandy beach, complete with palm trees. With average February temperature of 28℃, it's theperfect escape．

    THE DEAL: A seven-nightstay with Gatwick flights for 1, 403pp. FromFebruary 20.

    4. SOUTH AFRICA

    February is summer in South Africa, with average temperatures in the mid-20s℃. If you fancy chilling out in the sunshine, the Southern Sun Waterfront hotel has a large outdoor pool. But it is also in the heart ofthe city, which makes it easy to explore its many historic attractions. Take a cable car ride up TableMountain, or a shortboat trip to Robben Island，where Nelson Mandela was held prisoner.

    THE DEAL: 10 nights for 1, 662pp, with Heathrow flights. From February 18.

    Mark is always engaged in his work. But this time he felt that it was time for him to take part in his community, so he went to the neighborhood meeting after work. The area city council woman was leading a discussion about how the quality of life was on the decline. The neighborhood faced many problems. Mark looked at the charts taped to the walls. There were charts for parking problems, crime, and for problems in empty buildings. Mark read from the charts, “Police patrols cut back, illegal parking up 20%”. People were supposed to suggest solutions to the council woman. It was too much for Mark. “The problems are too big”, he thought. He turned to the man next to him and said, “I think this is a waste of my time. Nothing I can do would make a difference here.”

    As he neared the bus stop on his way home, Mark saw a woman carrying a grocery bag, and a baby. As Mark got closer, her other child, a little boy, suddenly ran into the street. The woman tried to reach for him, but as she moved, her bag shifted, and groceries started to fall out. Mark ran to take the boy's arm and led him back to his mother. “You gotta stay with mom,” he said. Then he picked up the stray groceries while and the woman smiled in relief. “Thanks,” she said, “You've got great timing.” “Just being neighborly,” Mark said. As he rode home, he glanced at the walls of bus. On one of them was “Small acts of kindness add up.” Mark smiled and thought, “Maybe that's a good place to start.”

    Plan on traveling around the USA this summer? If you need help in arranging the trip, or want ideas about where to go and what to do, there are a number of outstanding websites that can make your American dream come true.

    http://byways. org

    The National Scenic Byways Program covers 150 memorable roads. Some are natural routes, such as Route 1 along the California coast. Others focus on history (such as Route 6) or man-made attractions (the Las Vegas Strip). For each, you are provided with a map, told the route′s length and how long is allowed, and given detailed suggestions on sights and stop-offs.

    www.oyster.com

    This is the best website for reviews of hotels in US cities and resorts. The reviews are impressively thorough, covering locations, rooms, cleanliness, food and so on. Importantly, these are not promotional photos by the hotels, but more honest and real ones taken by inspectors. Search facilities are excellent. From the 243 hotels reviewed in the New York, you can narrow down what you are looking for by locations, facilities and styles, or just pick out a selection of the best.

    www. 101 usaholidays.co.uk

    This is the latest offering that features 101 holiday ideas to the USA. It's an impressively diverse selection, ranging from touring in the footsteps of Martin Luther King to a golfing break in Arizona and a cycling and wine-tasting trip in California's Napa Valley. Narrow down what you are looking for — whether by price, region, theme and who will be traveling — and then just the photos of the relevant holidays remain on view. It′s a really clever design.

    www.mousesavers.com

    Walt Disney World in California can make dreams come true, but the price is not affordable for the majority of people. So turn to long established Mousesavers.com, dedicated to giving big discounts on tickets, hotels and dining at Walt Disney World. The website also offers general money-saving tips, suggestions for cheap and free stuff and brief coverage of other Florida and California theme parks.

    Although his 1-year-old smart-phone still works perfectly, Li Jijia already feels the need to replace it.

    "There are many better ones available now. It's time to upgrade(更新）my phone."

    Li's impatience is shared by many. Shortly after the season when new products are released（发布，发售）, many consumers feel the urge to upgrade their electronic equipment, even though the ones they have still work just fine.

    As consumers' minds are occupied by Apple's newly released products and debate whether the Google tablet is better than the new Amazon Kindle, it might be time to take a step back and ask: "Do we really need the latest upgrades?"

    According to Donald Norman, an American author, "planned obsolescence (淘汰）" is the trick behind the upgrading culture of today's consumer electronics industry.

    Electronics producers strategically release new upgrades periodically, both for hardware and software, so that customers on every level feel the need to buy the newest version.

"This is an old-time trick—they're not inventing anything new," Norman said. "This is a wasteful system through which companies--many of them producing personal electronics—— release poor-quality products simply because they know that, in six months or a year, they'll put out a new one."

    But the new psychology of consumers is part of this system, as Norman admitted, "We now want something new, something pretty, the next shiny thing." In its most recent year, Apple's profit margin(利润) was more than 21 percent. At Hewlett-Packard, the world's biggest PC maker, it was only 7 percent.

    Apple's annual upgrades of its products create sales of millions of units as owners of one year's MacBook or iPhone line up to buy the newest version, even when the changes are slight.

    As to Li Jijia, the need for upgrading his smart-phone comes mainly from friends and classmates. When they are switching to the latest equipment, he worries about feeling left out.

    "Some games require better hardware to run," said Li. "If you don't join in, you lose part of the connection to your friends."

    There was a gardener who looked after his garden with great care. To water his flowers, he used two buckets（桶）. One was a shiny and new bucket. The other was a very old and dilapidated one, which had seen many years of service, but was now past its best.

    Every morning, the gardener would fill up the two buckets. Then he would carry them along the path, one on each side, to the flowerbeds. The new bucket was very proud of itself. It could carry a full bucket of water without a single drop spilled（溢出）.The old bucket felt very ashamed because of its holes: before it reached the flowerbeds, much water had leaked along the path.

    Sometimes the new bucket would say, "See how capable I am! How good it is that the gardener has me to water the flowers every day! I don't know why he still bothers with you. What a waste of space you are!"

    And all that the old bucket could say was, "I know I'm not very useful, but I can only do my best. I'm happy that the gardener still finds a little bit of use in me, at least. "

    One day, the gardener heard that kind of conversation. After watering the flowers as usual, he said, "You both have done your work very well. Now I am going to carry you back. I want you to look carefully along the path. "

    Then the two buckets did so. All along the path, they noticed, on the side where the new bucket was carried, there was just bare（光秃秃的）earth；on the other side where the old bucket was carried, there was a joyous row of wild flowers, leading all the way to the garden.

Cattle manure(粪肥) has become one of the world's greatest environmental killers, but one Dutch artist is using chemistry to turn it into something that is both eco-friendly and valuable.

In recent years, scientists around the world have made great progress in their attempts to recycle cattle manure, including turning it into natural fertilizer, but Eindhoven designer Jalila Essaidi didn't think they were efficient enough to solve the global manure problem. So she started on her very own solution, one that approached animal waste as a valuable material that could be processed into useful products.

She started by separating the waste, with the dry manure used to get pure cellulose(纤维素) from the grass that cows eat. From the wet manure, she got acids used to create a natural liquid plastic which was used to make fiber that are later turned into fabric(material used for making clothes).

This new material was named Mestic, from mest, the Dutch word for manure. Essaidi claim that it has the same function as plastic from fossil fuels, but is bio-degradable(可生物降解的). Better yet, the degradability can be dealt with in the lab, making it possible to create materials that last for different periods of time depending on their purpose. "This is not the first time that scientists have been looking for ways to solve the manure problem, but it is the first time that manure is being considered as a valuable resource." the Dutch designer said.

Last year, Jalila Essaldi partnered with the city of Eindhoven to produce a fashion show using Mestic-based fabrics. Her Mestic collection was so impressive that clothing giant H&M awarded her the Global Change Award and a $1million prize. And cow manure is just the beginning of Jalila Essaldi's experiments with animal waste. "After cows, we'll deal with pigs and other animals," she said.