British people like to go out for lunch with families on Sunday, either in pubs or restaurants.
Yesterday, we had a typical english sunday lunch in a local pub in Litton. Litton is a small village in Peak District. Thanks for the driving and guiding provided by Paul, one of our best English friends. The weather was not very nice, with slight rain from time to time. But at lunch time, the small pub was crowded with customers. Around us, there was an old couple who were drinking beers and talking gently and slowly to each other. At another table, a family with grand parents to little kids, were having meals, chatting and smiling.
I think the point of Sunday Lunch is not on the lunch itself, it's a chance to get together with people who you like on the last day of the week, to have one or two hours time to relax, to have some words, or just to sit and watch each other.
At Litton and another village called Tideswell, there is a local tradition named Well Dressing which usually happens in June. Well Dressing is a kind of art of decorating wells or springs with pictures made of growing things such as colorful flower petals and leaves. Local school children are encouraged to make their designs with paintbrush and then organised to build selected designs mainly with flowers, leaves, beans and other natural items. We've seen some very lovely well dressing, which give the village beautiful signs.
Joomla Tips: Call-time Pass-by-reference Has Been Deprecated
Written by Len Bai
Thursday, 21 June 2007
If you meet the following message on your Joomla based website or any other sites built with PHP
"Warning: Call-time pass-by-reference has been deprecated; If you would like to pass it by reference, modify the declaration of [runtime function name](). If you would like to enable call-time pass-by-reference, you can set allow_call_time_pass_reference to true in your INI file."
Dont get panic. There are two simple solutions shown below
1. Turn allow_call_time_pass_reference On (if you have access to the php.ini file on your host)
2. Remove the '&' from the line usually indicated with the above warning message
Either 1 or 2 would sort out the problem. This problem is mainly caused by the latest PHP version 5.2.2 and doesn't appear in the previous PHP versions.
This great video is produced by Marshal Studio, with warm support from all players of Old Man United football team and their companions. OMU is one of the most celebrated Chinese football teams in Sheffield, probably in the UK.
On last Sunday, we paid a visit to Haddon Hall, a medieval english manor house which can be dated from the 12th Century. Haddon Hall is located in the heart area of Derbyshire National Park, only 3 miles away from Bakewell.
This outing can be regarded as a sort of activity for this year's Children's Day. As I mentioned in the previous post, last year, we went to Chatsworth House where the film "Pride and Prejudice" was taken place. This time, Haddon Hall is also a place which hosted another famous film "Jane Eyre". I actually read the book "Jane Eyre" when I was in school. I didn't know that one day I could walk in the house where the love story happened, at least in the film. (Though it's not really the actual place)
Looking at everything in this house with nearly 1000 years history and listening melodious sound from an old piano, we seemed to walk in the 12th Century and have seen how people were living and working in daily life there. Going out to the garden, we felt more relaxed in the sunshine, surrounded by a lot of blooming flowers. It's such a nice trip and we wish to go back again.
It's another Children's Day... If I was right, last year, we went to Chatsworth House today...
The Children's Day is not really internationally wide. At least in the UK, children dont have today as a special holiday. Also in some countries, the date of Children's Day is not on the specific 01/06. But for all Chinese children, 01/06 is the happiest day of the year.
I can still remember how I was excited for the Children's Day when I was a child. Usually in one or two weeks ahead, I started to look forward to the Day anxiously. The most impressive days were when I lived in a village. On the Children's Day, my parents gave me and my brother some money. Then we walked from the village to the town centre which was about 4 miles away. At that time, we were 9 or 10 years old. It took us over 1 hour walking on the way. We very much enjoyed walking across woods, brooks and fields, along with a lot of laughing, singing, breaking, climing and chasing around. In the town centre, we basically had two things to do.
The first one was to go to a so called 'Big Hall' to watch a 4-hour lasting entertainment show which was performed by pupils from schools around the town. This seemed very important to us and we could not miss it in any way. The second thing was to spend the MONEY! Although the money was actually not much, we did feel it's quite enough for us for buying icecream or 'cold noodle', or playing electronic games etc. In the end, it's always proved a really lovely day.
Now, when I look back to those days nealy 20 years ago, all the fun on Children's Day was obtained so simply, but very genuinely. Though today we have way too many things better than those in past days, who can say that we can still easily get real happiness from the bottom of our hearts? Like we did in our childhood...
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At Litton and another village called Tideswell, there is a local tradition named Well Dressing which usually happens in June. Well Dressing is a kind of art of decorating wells or springs with pictures made of growing things such as colorful flower petals and leaves. Local school children are encouraged to make their designs with paintbrush and then organised to build selected designs mainly with flowers, leaves, beans and other natural items. We've seen some very lovely well dressing, which give the village beautiful signs.
