4 . We picked this year's best UK festivals----find your favourite and get out there this summer

All Points East

Returning for a third year after its successful 2019 launch, All Points East is a general 10-day festival that takes over Victoria Park in late May. The opening and closing three-day weekends are given over to music.

Place: Victoria Park

Time: May 22,2021-May 31,2021

Ticket:Adult   ￡35, Age19-24 with ID￡28; Under18 years old,free

Isle of Wight

Huge headliners is one of the UK's biggest rock festivals. Now in its 52nd year, the modern-day Isle of Wight festival is a far cry from the hippy(嬉皮士) love-in that landed back in1968.Nowadays,big-name headliners and commercial rock and pop favorites are the order of the day.

Place: Seaclose Park,Newport

Time: Jun 13-14. 12:00 a.m.-15:00 p.m.

Tickets:￡25 Adult;￡15 Age19-24 with ID;￡10 under 12 years old; under7, free

Love box

Consistently one of the finest festivals in London, catering for cool kids and party monsters alike, Love box has expanded again to become three-day event in 2021.This year will be its second in west London's Gunnersbury Park.

Place: London's Gunnersbury Park

Time: July12-14. 1:30 p.m.-2:30 p.m.

Tickets:￡185(adult three-day weekend);￡70(adult day ticket)

Junction 2

Calling all technology heads: in 2021, this big festival is spreading out over two days again following last year's successful expansion. Junction 2 is a meeting of some pretty serious music minds.

Place: Boston Manor Park Time: July 15-16

Tickets:￡45 for all ages

6 . On an autumn afternoon, a remote sheep farm in southern Greenland is quiet. The silence is abruptly broken when dozens of sheep come thundering across the hills overlooking the farm. Walking after them are Lars Nielsen and his 37-year-old son Kunuk Nielsen.

The Nielsen family has owned and run the farm since 1972. Kunuk says the summers now are longer than when he was a child and that drought has become a problem. The fields are not so green as those in the old days. He has to buy hay (草料) from European countries.

The effects of a warming climate are obvious on the land. While he intends to struggle on, his older brother Pilu has chosen a different path.

Pilu, 40, lives in Qaqortoq in the south of Greenland -- a town of about 3,000 people. Ten years ago, he got his helicopter pilot's license and is now part owner of a small company called Sermeq Helicopters. It caters to construction and telecommunication workers and an increasing number of foreign tourists.

Pilu says he loves his family's sheep farm. But he saw that warming temperatures were making remote areas of Greenland more accessible and wanted to look for other opportunities. His company's most popular tours include a visit to Greenland's glaciers.

The warming temperatures are also affecting traditional ways of life, particularly hunting. The sea ice is changing; it's becoming less so that hunting on ice becomes more difficult. When there's no sea ice, it's difficult to use dog sledges (雪橇)，and the whole culture around having dogs and dog sledges and doing traditional hunting on the ice is sort of diminishing.

Besides, many Greenlanders, like Pilu, are leaving the countryside for towns and the capital city Nuuk, where opportunities are greater. A report found that Nuuk's share of Greenland's population grew from 17.2% in 1977 to 29.2% in 2014. If there were enough houses in Nuuk, the share would even be bigger.

7 . Famous for its tolerance as well as its narrow houses and broad canals, Amsterdam is undergoing a change of attitude when it comes to the millions of tourists that come to see it each year. Tolerance has reached its limits in the capital of Dutch, which is now actively urging visitors to head elsewhere.

Ellen van Loon, a partner at Dutch architectural firm OMA says, “We don’t want to turn into a Venice. While tourism earns the Dutch economy around 82 billion Euros a year, the problem we are currently facing is that Amsterdam is so loved by tourists, we just have so many coming to the city.”

Netherlands tourist officials recently took the decision to stop advertising the country as a tourist destination. Their “Perspective 2030” report, published earlier this year, stated that the focus will now be on “destination management” rather than “destination promoting”. The document also describes the country’s future strategy, acknowledging that Amsterdam’s livability will be severely influenced by “visitor overload” if action isn’t taken.

Solutions listed include working to discourage groups of visitors by either limiting or completely shutting down accommodation and entertainment products aimed at them, as well as spreading visitors to other parts of the Netherlands. Some of these measures have already come into play. Last year, the famous “I Amsterdam” sign was removed from outside the Rijksmuseum, the city’s main art gallery. The two-meter high letters have been moved to various “lesser-known neighborhoods” in a bid to entice travelers to leave the center of the city.

But will the measures being put in place be enough to save it from being damaged by its own success? Like many other locals, Van Loon fears Amsterdam has lost its uniqueness forever. “The reason tourists come here is that there’s something in the character of Amsterdam they love,” she explains. “But at a certain point, when the number of tourists is increasing and increasing, they actually kill what they loved in the first place.”

8 . Here are four fantastic experiences for you to enjoy wonderful countryside spots, breath-taking scenery and clean, fresh air. Pack your bags and get outside!

Horse-riding

Here’s a novel way of chasing the Northern Lights — on horseback, which is a back-to-nature experience hunting for the aurora borealis. You’ll saddle up (给马备鞍) at dusk and head deeper into the wilds near the Pallas Yllas National Park.

GO: Three-night full-board guided trip, including two nights in a cottage and one night glamping, from £965 per person. See aurora zone. com.

Mountain-biking

You can choose from guided downhill or cross-country mountain biking to road cycling and families can enjoy peaceful, slower paths and farm trails.

Extra activities include hiking, water park.

GO: Five-night B&B packages including transfers and guided biking, from £374 per person. Bike hire from around £15 a day. See wizzair. com.

Camping

Get back to basics on a campsite with none of that fancy glamping. The pitches are large so you can light your own campfire at night. Walkers are in heaven here, hiking among the limestone hills filled with traditional stone walls.

Also a great destination for fishing, sailing and windsurfing on nearby Lake Semerwater.

GO: Non-electric grass tent pitches from £20 a night. Tipi already pitched from £70 a night. See pitchup. com.

Whale-watching

Scotland’s west coast, one of Europe’s best places to catch sight of whales, has launched a new whale trail. It features 30 top places offering opportunities to see the wildlife and showcases whale heritage sites.

GO: Accommodation along the trail is reasonable including B&B in a double room at Torran in Ullapool from £70 a night. See bandbullapool. co. uk.

9 . There was a gardener who looked after his garden with great care. To water his flowers，he used two buckets(水桶).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. The old bucket felt very ashamed(惭愧的)because of its holes: before it reached the flowerbeds，much water had leaked(渗漏)along the path.

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

And all that the old bucket could say was，"I know I am not very useful，but I can only do my best. I am 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，and 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 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.