What is the most romantic setting for a wedding? Aboard a cruise liner? A beach in the Caribbean? For me the choice has got to be a castle in the beautiful English Countryside.

Weddings are a celebration of love. They should provide lasting memories of a fantastic event where people enjoyed themselves while sharing in the celebration. What better setting is there than a castle in the English countryside.

Rowton Castle Hotel is one such location. It provides an exceptional castle wedding venue, set in 17 acres of beautiful Shropshire countryside. The castle has an interesting and colourful history stretching back to Roman times but the current building is only around 800 years old.

Rowton Castle is a truly luxurious hotel, providing nineteen individually designed bedrooms, many of which have period four poster beds. All rooms have the facilities that you would expect from a top class hotel and many are furnished with antique or top quality reproduction furniture.

Rowton Castle is definitely a fairytale wedding venue. Not only is the setting astoundingly beautiful but the service is exceptional and the award winning restaurant serves food that you will be talking about for many months.

If you are looking for a fantastic castle wedding venue you should definitely take a look at Rowton Castle Hotel, located close to Shrewsbury in the beautiful Shropshire countryside.

Barbados is a beautiful Island, full of wonderful sights and with fantastic people. To celebrate this fact, we have put together our top five photographs from Flickr that we feel sum up the mood of Barbados perfectly.

Green Back Turtle, West Coast Barbados

The above photograph is was taken by TarikB in West Coast Barbados.

In stark contrast with the calm western shores of Barbados we have the wild eastern coast and our next photo:

POWER

Taken by Just Jax on east coast Barbados, POWER demonstrates how ferocious the ocean can be and just why the east coast is great for watersports.

B’dos beach volley

What Barbados beach would be complete without the beach volleyball net swaying in the breeze? This photograph was taken by jendayee.

A Moment Alone

This photograph illustrates the true beauty of the Caribbean, and this rugged coastline shot was captured by Jeff Clow.

Portrait of a Ghost Crab

This scary little fellow was taken by Massamiliano Peana, as is the next photo:

Almond Resorts offer all-inclusive Barbados holidays at three luxury properties: Almond Beach Club & Spa, Almond Beach Village and Almond Casuarina Beach.

I just came across this excellent camping kit list on the Ray Mears web site. I wish I’d read this before going to the Glastonbury festival.

Not being particularly experienced campers we went for the budget option of cheap sleeping bags and an even cheaper tent bought from our local ‘anything for a pound’ style of shop. Not surprisingly, the tent leaked like a sieve and the sleeping bags offered no insulation whatsoever. We (my long-suffering girlfriend and me) were both cold and wet after our first night out.

We ended up spending a small fortune on replacement kit from various festival stalls. We’d have been far better off buying some decent quality sleeping bags from a reputable supplier, like the Ray Mears Woodlore shop.

My old mum always used to say “There’s no such thing as bad weather – just the wrong clothes.” How right she was. Equipped with the right outdoor clothing and you can go nearly anywhere at any time of year.

The next festival on our summer agenda is the Beachdown festival near Brighton in Sussex. The line up looks fantastic and the location is excellent. Let’s hope that the British summer weather is kind to us this time.

Lovers of beer, reggae and soulful vibes can’t go far wrong at the Red Strip Reggae SumFest. Each year, some of the top names in Reggae, Soul, Jazz and other genres of Urban music come together to celebrate in the vibrant Montego Bay, Jamaica.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adryeQppp9M

This year’s SumFest was one of the most successful so get planning for next years festival. There are some fantastic resorts across Jamaica from the adults only Couples Resorts, to the beautiful Grand Lido Braco.

If you’re lucky enough to go on holiday to Jamaica, the one thing you must try is the famous Jamaican jerk chicken. Jerk is a hot spice mix rubbed onto meats prior to cooking which creates a fantastic flavour which is best experienced barbecued.

Another traditional Jamaican dish is ackee and saltfish. Ackee and saltfish is salt cod which is sautéed with boiled ackee. But what on earth is ackee? Ackee is actually a fruit which was introduced to Jamaica from West Africa and is now considered the national fruit of Jamaica with ackee and saltfish laying claim to the title of national dish.
Ackee is a bright orange fruit that when cooked looks and tastes a little like scrambled eggs and its slightly sweet taste combines perfectly with the saltfish so don’t be afraid to try it, its delicious.

Another popular dish in Jamaica is curry goat. Don’t ask for goat curry unless you want to get a funny look, it’s called curry goat in the Caribbean and despite what you may think, when cooked by an expert, it is incredibly tender and tasty.

To wash that down, how about an ice cold Red Stripe lager or perhaps you might like to sample Appleton Estate Jamaica Rum, dubbed as one of the finest rums in the world.

Couples Resorts offer beautiful all-inclusive resorts in Jamaica, with four stunning award winning resorts in fantastic locations: Couples Negril, Ocho Rios, Sans Souci and Swept Away.

If you’re a working parent of youngish children you will already know that the summer holidays can be quite a trial. Childcare can cost a fortune and coming up with activities to keep youngsters entertained and happy can be a real struggle.

It’s not enough to simply pay a child minder to watch over your offspring and expect them to entertain themselves with their garden trampoline or climbing frame. You have to get creative and imaginative in order for your children not to become bored and fractious.

Myself and few of my neighbouring parent friends got together before this years summer holidays began and decided to pool our resources for the sake of our (joint) six children. We now pay one child minder to look after all six little ones at one of our four houses for three days a week. Luckily two parents work part-time, 3 day week, and they are happy to look after all six children on their days off. (Very selfless of them).

We came up with a list of activities with the basic requirements that they don’t cost too much and don’t require long journeys. Here is a selection of what the children find most engaging:

Home Sports Tournaments: These involve a variety activities chosen by the children like, running a length of the garden with an egg on a spoon, followed by 10 bounces on the trampoline (always a squeeze), then hopping on one leg while patting their heads etc. You get the picture.

Team Games in the Local Park: A variety of games are played including football, rounders, and some non-team games like pom-pom and stick in the mud.

Cycle Rides: Luckily our child minder is a keen cyclist and the local roads are very quiet during the day so she takes them on some quite long and tiring rides.

Nature Walks in Local Countryside: We live near some fantastic countryside so the children love to ramble and find things like dead sheep’s bones and the like.

Rockpooling on a Local Beach: Again we are immensely luckly to live within reach of some great beaches which, when the tide is out, provide an ideal adventure playground for the little ones.

Fossil Hunting on a Local Beach: Another great beach activity that the kids love

Quizzes (for those wet days): They particularly like to pretend they are appearing on TV games show.

Home Cinema (again for those wet days): This is saved for when they are tired. Put on a favourite movie. Sometimes followed by a quizz with questions about what was in the movie.

Build a Spaceship (from rubbish): They love this. Using cardboard boxes, gaffer tape and some paints – build a space ship. Fantastic, imaginative play.

Den Building (in a local wood): Including rope swings and ladders. This is another popular fine weather activity.

Swimming: At our local swimming pool, if the weather is bad, but maybe in the sea if it is fine.

Mini Raft Building: Using driftwood and string.

Birdwatching: Spotting and identifying various birds.

Fishing: Not so popular – except with some of the boys

Gardening: Again, not so popular but now they are seeing their plants growing their interest is building

Cooking (another good activity for wet days): Can be a bit messy so I’m glad when they do this in someone elses house.

Our group of youngsters are all aged eight and under so their demands are generally quite easily met. So far we’ve not had any serious injury or upset, but some of the cooking I’ve had to eat left a lot to be desired. Roll on September and the return to school.