Day tripping: discover the Thames Valley by train this summer

Footloose and fancy-free fun is what summer is all about and there's no better way to go on a stress-free day trip than by train. Here’s our pick of festivals and events that are an easy hop from London Paddington.

May 26-28

Blenheim Palace Food Festival              Nearest station: Hanborough

Sink your teeth into local cheeses, slurp local ales（麦芽酒）and get inspired to cook with Oxfordshire produce at live demonstrations during this annual food festival, Better still, gather some goodies and go for a picnic within its beautiful parklands. Flowers more your thing? The Blenheim Palace Flower Show also takes place here, from June 22 to 24.

June17

Marlow Dragon Boat Festival                           Nearest station: Marlow

Head down to the banks of the Thames early to bag a good spot to see the teams go head-to-head at this colourful dragon boat racing spectacle in Marlow. The free event, which is part of the wider ticketed Marlow Town Regatta（划船比赛）and Festival, promises to be a lively day out. There will be food stalls and free entertainment, too, to keep the cheering crowds amused.

August 24-26

Wokingham Festival                    Nearest station: Wokingham

Hop on the free shuttle bus from Wokingham train station to join in the good-old-fashioned fun at this charming community festival in Berkshire. Centering around Cantley Event Field, it promises a beer festival, live music, food stalls, and plenty to keep the little ones happy, from face painting to circus（马戏团）skills. Kids go free.

The Silk Road is a name given to the many trade routes that connected Europe and the Mediterranean（地中海）with the Asian world. The route is over 6,500 km long and got its name because the early Chinese traded silk along it. Although silk was the main trading item, there were many other goods that travelled along the Silk Road between Eastern Asia and Europe. In the course of time, medicine, perfumes, spices and livestock（家畜）found their way between continents.

The Chinese learned to make silk thousands of years ago. For a long time they were the only ones who knew how to make this precious material. Only the emperor, his family and his highest advisers were allowed to wear clothes made of silk. For a long time the Chinese guarded this secret very carefully. The ancient Romans were the first Europeans who became aware of this wonderful material. Trading started, often with Indians as middlemen（中间人）who traded silk with the Chinese in exchange for gold and silver which they got from the Romans.

Travelling along the route was dangerous. The hot desert, high mountains and sandstorms made traveling a rough business. Most of the goods along the Silk Road were carried by caravans（商队）. Traders sometimes brought goods from one destination on the silk Road to another, from where the goods would be transported by someone else. Over the centuries people settled along the ancient route and many cities emerged. Later on there were fewer hardships to overcome, but by no means was it easy.

Religion, languages and diseases also spread along the Silk Road. Buddhism, which originated in India, spread to China along this route. European traders probably brought the plague from Asia to Europe along the ancient road.

In the early Middle Ages, traffic along the route decreased because of the decline of the Roman Empire. Trading along the Silk Road became stronger again between the 13th and 14th centuries, when the Mongols controlled central Asia. During the Age of Exploration the Silk Road lost its importance because new sea routes to Asia were discovered.

China’s college graduates are leaving first-tier cities（一线城市）for second-tier ones, according to the annual College Graduates’ Employment Report issued on Monday.

The report said that 22.3 percent of college graduates last year chose to work in first-tier cities—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen—down 1.3 percentage points from 2016 and 5.9 percentage points from 2013. In 2017, 21.7 percent of college graduates chose to leave first-tier cities after working there for three years, up 2.5 percentage points from 2016 and 8 percentage points from 2015.

The report also found that leading second-tier cities are attracting more recent graduates. Around 35.6 percent of college graduates who chose to work in the top 10 second-tier cities such as Hangzhou, Chengdu and Wuhan, were from other regions in 2017, up 3.6 percentage points from the previous year.

The report was based on a survey of 306,000 graduates from 30 provinces and regions. It was released by MyCOS, an education consulting and research institute in Beijing.

Wang Boqing, founder of MyCOS, said large populations, traffic jam, smog, increasing property prices and great difficulty in obtaining permanent residence（居住）, or hukou in Chinese, have brought high pressure to life in first-tier cities for college graduates, which gives second-tier cities an opportunity to attract talented workers.

Second-tier cities have rolled out a series of policies to attract university graduates, which include favorable treatment to obtain hukou, as well as housing and government subsidies（津贴）, he said. Wuhan, Hubei Province, has planned to build affordable housing for university graduates, and allow graduates to buy or rent apartments at a discount of at least 20 percent of the market price.

Chu Zhaohui, a senior researcher at the National Institute of Education Sciences, however, said that the governments of such cities should notice that welfare（福利）, housing and money can attract people in a short time. “Professionals aim mainly at prospects（前景）for career development rather than just benefits,” Chu said, adding that those cities should maintain their advantages, such as low cost of living and nicer environments, to keep their appeal. The cities should provide more opportunities for employment that are similar to those in first-tier cities, he said.

The British economy is showing the greatest signs of stress since the Eurozone crisis and fears of a double-dip recession（衰退）six years ago, as worrying reports show the steepest fall in manufacturing（制造业）output and the greatest degrees of pessimism among employers since 2012. Concerns over Brexit（英国脱欧）and a slowdown for high street spending are among the major factors contributing towards 2018 being the worst time in six years for British firms planning to take on new staff, according to a closely watched survey conducted by the employment firm ManpowerGroup.

Watched by the Bank of England and the government for early warnings of hiring increases or downturns, the quarterly poll（季度民意调查）of about 2,000 major employers from nine different industry sectors across the UK found a net balance of only 4% planning to hire more staff rather than cutting back.

The weakest outlook from the survey was reserved for the banking and finance industry, which recorded the worst outlook since the depths of the financial crisis almost a decade ago, suggesting job cuts may be on the way over the summer.

The barometer（晴雨表）of hiring sentiment comes as Britain’s factories unexpectedly recorded the sharpest drop in output for more than five years in April. Pointing to fewer orders for steel used in infrastructure（基础设施）projects and a wider slowdown in demand for British goods at home and abroad, the Office for National Statistics said manufacturing output fell by 1.4% in April from the previous month. Economists had forecast modest growth of 0.3%.

Although the situation does not appear to be as severe this year, forecasts issued by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research on Monday suggest the UK has done little to bounce back from heavy snowfall earlier in 2018. Putting the growth rate for GDP at only 0.2% in the three-month period to May, up from 0.1% in the same period ending in April, Niesr’s head of UK macroeconomic forecasting, Amit Kara, said: “Economic growth has slowed materially since the start of this year and it continues to remain weak.”