“People are ruder today because they are rushed and more ‘time poor' than ever before, ” says Patsy Rowe, “ Manners have fallen off the radar(雷达). ” Due to our strong attraction to electronic equipment it is a wonder more people don't wake up each morning and greet the singing birds with a complaint（抱怨）about the noise. Here are some examples of rudeness.

    Some people prefer to do almost everything over the internet. To them, dealing with an actual human is like an evolutionary step backward. It feels very slow because humans don, t work at 4G speeds. When you have dinner with friends, you will often notice someone paying more attention to his mobile phone. We have programmed ourselves to think that every new message brings life-changing news, so taking calls and checking our texts are more important than talking to the people we are with. What is worse, some people even tend to send anonymous（匿名的） rude messages by email.

    However, rudeness is never acceptable, Don, t assume it is OK to be rude if the person you, re in touch with won, t recognize you. If you have something awful to say, have the courage to face the person and say it, write a letter or email and sign it, or forget it. Upsetting people with unsigned messages is cruel and disgusting.

    We shouldn′t blame technology for our shortcomings. Technology is here to help us, but we should not allow it to take over our lives. An important step is acknowledging our shortcomings. People spend a lot of time pointing out bad manners but it would be even more help if we′d publicly acknowledge good manners when we see them.

    When the dog named Judy spotted the first sheep in her life, she did what comes naturally. The four-year-old dog set off racing after the sheep across several fields and, being a city animal, lost both her sheep and her sense of direction. Then she ran along the edge of cliff( 悬崖) and fell 100 feet, bouncing off a rock into the sea.

    Her owner Mike Holden panicked and celled the coastguard of Cornwall, who turned up in seconds. Six volunteers slid down the cliff with the help of a rope but gave up all hope of finding her alive after a 90-minute search.

    Three days later, a hurricane hit the coast near Cornwall. Mr. Holden returned home from his holiday upset and convinced his pet was dead. He comforted himself with the thought she had died in the most beautiful part of the country.

    For the next two weeks, the Holdens were heartbroken. Then, one day, the phone rang and Steve Tregear, the coastguard of Cornwall, asked Holder if he would like his dog bark.

    A birdwatcher, armed with a telescope, found the pet sitting desperately on a rock. While he sounded the alarm, a student from Leeds climbed down the cliff to collect Judy.

    The dog had initially been knocked unconscious(失去知觉的)but had survived by drinking water from a fresh scream at the base of the cliff. She may have fed on the body of a sheep which had also fallen over the edge. “The dog was very thin and hungry,” Steve Tregear said, “It was a very dog. She survived because of a plentiful supply of fresh water,” he added.

    It was, as Mr. Holden admitted, “a minor miracle(奇迹)”.

    When Luke went to university he thought he would be on a new journey in life and getting his own place. In the UK, it's common to fly the nest at a fairly young age. Many choose a flat-share; others make plans to get on the property ladder.

    But the current economic situation forced Luke back to his mum's house at the age of 27. And he's not alone: a quarter of young adults in the UK now live with their parents. The Office for National Statistics said more than 3.3 million adults between the ages of 20 and 34 were living with their parents in 2013.

    Lack of jobs and the high cost of renting accommodation made Luke change his plans. He's upset. "There's something very difficult about being an adult living in an environment where you're still a child," he says. "It limits me socially; sometimes I feel it limits me professionally."

    Indeed, many young people have no choice but to stay at "the hotel of Mum and Dad".

    Krissy had to return home after a year away and now lives in rather terrible conditions, sharing the family's three-bedroom house with her sisters. She says they end up getting on each other's nerves when it's time to use the bathroom in the morning.

    Of course, living with your parents is not unusual in some countries. Economic conditions, culture, or family traditions mean many young people stay at home until they get married. Even then, it can be too expensive to rent or buy a house and the married couples continue to live at one of their parents' homes.

    But some parents seem to enjoy having their kids back at home. Janice's daughters are part of what's being called "the boomerang generation". She says, "I get to share their lives with them, and I've got to know them all as adults. We have the sort of conversations that good friends do."

    So for some it's a win-win situation — spending time with your families, and saving money.

    The Shiants, remote, cliff-edged islands off the coast of Scotland are home to 350,000 seabirds. This is the starting point for National Geographic contributor Adam Nicolson's new book, The Seabirds Cry. Celebrating 10 species in detail, he describes the unbelievable recovery of seabirds and the many adaptations that have enabled them to survive and navigate the oceans, while sounding a loud call for their conservation among severely falling numbers.

    Speaking from his home in Sussex, England, Nicolson explains why guillemot (海雀) colonies are information exchange centers: how new research is showing that those long-distance travelers. The shearwaters, "smell" their way across the globe; and what we can do to support seabird populations.

    National Geographic has just kicked off Year of the Bird with a cover story by Jonathan Franzen titled "Why Birds Matter ". The beginning of Year of the Bird is beneficial to birds. Nicolson said, "I'll ask you the same question-why? For me, these seabirds are symbols of uniqueness. There is so much on the land where the rest of the living world seems to be controlled by us, but when you go to seabird colonies, there is this pumping, loud and raging uniqueness. It's a glance of the untouched world. "

    "The reason why it's untouched is that, until recently, we have not controlled the oceans that the seabirds depend on. More of them have survived in greater numbers than most other creatures in the developed world, where huge amounts of the animal kingdom have been removed by us. And so one reason these birds matter is that they are symbols of what the world might be if we hadn't done so much damage to it. "He added.

    "Seabirds also tend to disappear; they're not reliably of our world, due to their migration and habits of life. Very deep in our consciousness is a sense that they are ambassadors from another world. And witnessing and feeling that is, I think, one of the great enlargers of life." Nicolson explained.

    Road trip

    Motorhome delivery offers great family holidays. For just $1 a day, you can hire a fully-equipped motorhome, which you deliver to a specific destination within some days and kilometers. You then hire another one to get home or take a bus or train. Your only other expense will be fuel and about $20 a day for parking fees. To learn more, visit apollocamper. com.

    Plan ahead

    For a comfortable break, flexibility with times, dates and places helps lower the cost. Find a few hotels you like, ask about their vacant rooms, then wait a few weeks and call again. If they still have rooms, you're at an advantage to ask for a better price. Lots of last-minute deals are online. Watif (watif. com. au) has deals on hotels that have dropped their prices so slow. You don't know where you're staying until it's booked, but anywhere with four or five stars has to be fairly good.

    Back to nature

    Wild camping appeals to nature lovers and costs nothing. This is forbidden on beaches and parks in most urban areas, but you can turn up in more distant area as long as nobody owns the land. You'll need to take everything with you and may need to shop on eBuy (ebuy. com. au). If you're a camping beginner, be aware of safety measures and get your questions answered on the Internet.

    Swap meet

    How about a home swap? For a $250 yearly joining cost, you can stay in someone's home in an international place of your choice while they or someone else stays in yours. Find out more at familylink.com.au.

    A few weeks ago, a 71-year-old man pulled his car to the roadside in Northwest Portland and stopped. He rolled down the window, turned off the engine and stared at a house.

    The place, distinguished by three gables, is partially hidden by hedges and trees. Most people who pass by would never notice it. And if they did give it a glance, they'd probably think it's a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Nothing more.

    The house, in the 2500 block of Northwest Westover Road, is known as the Bessie & Louis Tarpley House. Built in 1907, it's listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

    The current owner is Barbee Lyon, 79.

    He and his first wife took possession in 1975. When they divorced, he bought out her share.

    A retired lawyer, Lyon learned Louis Tarpley, the home's first owner, had also been a Portland lawyer. Setbacks in Tarpley's life led to the house auction(拍卖) in the late 1920s.

    "I'm only the fifth owner of the home," Lyon said.

    A previous owner was Frank Masco.

    He and his wife, Esther, and their nine children had lived across town in a tiny house needing constant repairs. In the mid-1950s, the elder Masco wanted to move to a bigger house and one closer to work. A docker (码头工人), he was on-call 24 hours a day and had to quickly get to the Willamette River docks.

    He found a home on Westover Road. At the time, many people wanted to live in new construction in the suburbs. The Westover house was offered at a deep discount.

    And later the family moved on several times, finally living in Vancouver.

    One Sunday in July 2019, Charley Masco drove to Portland for an appointment at a computer store. When it ended, he traveled the familiar route to Westover Road, pulled over and looked at that home.

    He decided to do something bold. He got out of his car and walked up the steps and rang the doorbell. He waited. No response. Nervous, he thought it was a mistake to do this and considered turning around and walking back to his car.

Barbee Lyon opened the door and saw a stranger.

    "I'm not selling anything," Masco said quickly. "I just want you to know I once lived here."

    Lyon opened the door wide.

    "Come in."

    And for the first time since 1966, Masco stepped into his childhood home.

    Every room looked as Masco had remembered it: The built-in china hutch in the dining room, the hanging lights above the table and, in the kitchen, a massive wood-burning stove where his mother used to cook family meals. It was as if he had walked into his own museum.

    Lyon told Masco he'd never done major structural remodeling, which meant Masco knew his way around the home.

    It was as if he had never left.

    There, on the top floor, was the window he and his siblings quietly opened to sneak out at night and return before their parents knew they were gone. The loft where friends daydreamed about the future. The living room – no TV ever allowed – where the family gathered to share music, play cards or just talk with each other.

    Then they all walked to the basement.

    In the far corner, Masco saw his father's old wooden workbench. And above it, baby food jars. Masco had forgotten about them.

    He explained that his father had nailed lids from the jars to a rafter, filling the glass with different size screws, nuts and bolts, and then screwing the jars back into the lids to give him easy access while working.

    Masco thought about his father, his mother and three of his siblings who have died. He thought about his father, tinkering in the basement, while his mother was in the kitchen preparing dinner.

    He thought about the 71-year-old man he was and the boy he had once been.

    Kruse, Lyon's wife, reached up and unscrewed a jar. She handed it to Masco, believing it belonged to this stranger.

    Masco thanked her.

    He clutched the small bottle to his chest.

    "My dad," he said quietly. "This is my dad."