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I’ve been to deserted beaches in Zanzibar. I’ve swum with dolphins in Praia de Pipa in Brazil. I’ve seen clouds of gulls over Mancora in Peru. I’ve travelled all over South East Asia looking for white sands and towering palm trees. I’ve spent too long on beaches in India watching fishermen hauling in their nets and women splashing in the waves in tight wet sarees. I’ve tried lake beaches in Malawi and Uganda. I’ve sunbathed on empty beaches strewn with coconut husks in Tanzania. I’ve camped on Caribbean beaches in Colombia and I’ve spent childhood holidays staying on forlorn and windswept beaches in Britain. I just can’t get enough of beaches. I really am a beach addict.

At one point I even lived on a beach for 18 months. It was kind of an experiment to see if I would drift into an enlightened state through being surpassingly relaxed. It was also an experiment to see if I would get bored of the Thai beach that I chose for the experiment. The answers are that sadly I’m still chained by desire to the wheel of life and death and that no, I never got bored of living on a beach.

I chose the beach of Thong Nai Pan Noi because for too long I have considered this particular beach to be the epitome of a great beach. More than that: I considered Thong Nai Pan to be the apotheosis of a great beach. Thus, if I’m going to try and define a great beach it should be with reference to Thong Nai Pan Noi.

The first thing about a great beach is that it should be relatively undiscovered. This is not only an environmental must, but also inherent to the experience of a perfect beach. You should ideally walk through majestic palm trees and onto the white sands and see nothing but clear turquoise waters merging into green waters. The sand should be so white it reflects the sun and makes you squint. There should be no madding crowds with canopies, beer coolers, big cars and loud music. No ridiculously defunct swimming pools on the beach. No Bablesque high rise hotels. Just nature at its stunning best is best for me.

The next most important thing about a great beach, in my opinion, is beachfront accommodation. From my cheap bungalow in Thong Nai Pan I could hear the ocean lapping on the shore. I could look out the hole that was my window and see the moon through the swaying coconut palms. Not only do I like cheap beach accommodation, but I also like accommodation that does not drive away nature: when towering concrete comes to a beach the animals retreat and the beauty of a place fades as convenience grows. Yes mosquitoes are a pain and having a snake slide into your bungalow is a heart stopper but it is worth it to feel part of God’s not man’s glorious creation.

My next ‘must’ for a great beach is great local people. There is nothing more addictive than island life. Months can literally slip through your fingers like the sand on the beach and you wonder what you achieved. There is no point being in a hurry. There’s always time to stop and chat and enjoy a drink. For those lucky locals who have imbibed the liberating elixir of island life from childhood there is a definite calmness and openness that we city slickers find both infuriating and enchanting. Time is measured by things infinitely more valuable than minutes and hours.

Finally, my definition of a great beach must include a beach with a beach bar; but not just any beach bar. It must be made of local materials such as bamboo and coconut and have a make shift feel; just a basic counter, a bit of shade and lots of cold drinks. A place mostly deserted except for a couple of locals. I like a bar where when somebody does come in, you have the chance to have a real conversation and make a real friend.

Thong Nai Pan used to have all of this and more. Sadly half the beach has been sold to developers from Bangkok who are trying desperately to turn sand into a high rate of return. While we stayed there they knocked down cheap $5 a night bungalows as soon as we vacated them. We watched the ominous fad of the swimming pool take hold. We saw granite boulders chiseled away and trees cut down. Clean wide views of nature became cluttered with man-made lines. The price of everything went up. The locals grew a hint of misplaced avarice, the police decided they needed to investigate parties and those beach bars became cluttered with iPods, Amazon Kindle 3 readers, smart phones, laptops and people with nothing to say.

These pictures were taken by Carl Glancey using a Canon 5D Mark2. He specializes in Surrey wedding photography.

Have you heard about the Google Latitude application? I think this is a pretty cool way of staying in contact with people and it can certainly be used to increase your likelihood of bumping into one of your friends, or not bumping into them if you would prefer it that way!

You can use it on whatever mobile device you currently use. It works with lots of different models, for example, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Nokia and so on. In essence, it is a piece of phone tracker software that you simply install onto your handset. This then lets you share your location with your friends, or not. You still have full control over your privacy settings so if you want to go off the radar, you still can.

I am trying to drink lots of fresh fruit and vegetable juices these days. It is definitely one of the best ways to stay hydrated and get plenty of vitamins and minerals into my system.

Some of my favorite drinks are really easy to make, or get from a juice store. There is quite a lot to be said for simplicity. Plain orange juice is great. Carrot and ginger juice is another one that I really like.

I treat myself to a smoothie once a week too. If I had my own blender I would probably spend quite a lot of time looking for the best smoothie recipes. There are quite a few raw food blogs that have some pretty good information. That’s one of the things I love about the internet, we can get so much info for free! I also came across a site that talks about a total cleanse. This seems to be a way to greatly improve the way that we feel and helps us to get rid of lots of toxins that build up over time in our bodies. I am going to give this a bit more investigation because it seems like it could be a great way to stay in the best shape.

Some other people say that drinking red wine is good for health. This seems like a bit of an excuse to keep on drinking alcohol Perhaps there is some truth to the statement that red wine contains lots of antioxidants. A nice glass of red does go down very well. There are lots of delicious Spanish wines that are worth tasting. Even if they’re not the best choice for health, they taste real good.

Special kinds of landscape lighting are not only for the home and garden. To be honest, they can look the most impressive on larger public buildings when corporations or the government is paying for them! Suddenly, the cost is not the issue. These two night shots taken in London, England show two very different areas. The first shot was taken from Greenwich looking towards the new financial center of Canary Wharf. The second shot is even more impressive and shows the new Wembley Stadium. These pictures just go to show how outdoor landscape lighting can totally transform the night-time view.

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Pictures taken by Carl Glancey who specializes in wedding photography in the South East of England.

The EatSmart digital nutrition scale is one of the most popular weighing scales currently on the market. Partly because of the price but mainly because of all the features that it offers. We will find that if we are in the market for a set of electronic kitchen scales then the EatSmart nutrition scale may well be worth considering.

Rather than just buying a set of scales that weighs out your food it may be worth paying a little more and getting something that can also count the calories of your food.

At the simple press of a button we can get all the nutritional data that we need for any produce that we put on the scale. As well as calories it will offer us information on the levels of fiber, sodium, fats and even Vitamin K. All of this is invaluable for those on a diet or for anyone that simply wishes to ensure that they are eating healthily and with the correct ratios in their diet.

So, before you buy a cheap set of digital kitchen scales yo may like to consider the EatSmart Nutritional scale. It is one of those items that is extremely helpful in the kitchen and for the small extra price that you pay it means you will never need to invest in a new set of scales in the future if you want this feature at some point.

As online marketers or basically almost any kind of business owner, there’s a very important factor the vast majority of us can agree on… Crafting excellent sales copy isn’t an effortless task. There are many of things that you must perform very well in order to create sales copy that converts a large proportion of viewers into customers. There are many vital elements for creating mindblowing sales copy, however three of these jump out above the rest. I have talked about them below.

1) Write for the Target Audience

One of the positively most essential tricks for generating sale copy that actually converts for your internet marketing company would be to write it specifically for your target market. You’ll want a precise person in mind when you’re writing it. That means you must know exactly who your possible client is and what they need. Form an image in your thoughts of what your ideal customer is and write directly for that person.

If you target your sales copy to a particular person that signifies your market it may become personal for everyone that reads it. Making your writing personal should help the text to genuinely touch the reader on a more intense level and will make more and more people purchase anything that you are offering.

2) Use their Emotions

People today purchase stuff determined by emotions for immediate gratification most of the time. That is why you hear the saying “impulse buy” so frequently. For that reason, playing on the readers emotions is imperative for crafting terrific sales copy. You are trying to access them psychologically and the easiest way to achieve this is to discuss issues that they can identify with. Paint a picture in their thoughts for precisely how wonderful their life will be if only they had whatever it is that you are marketing.

3) Focus on the Advantages

Another essential word of advice for writing terrific product sales copy is to heavily focus on the advantages for the potential buyer. You don’t purely want to inform your reader of all the great things that the product or service does. That doesn’t trigger them to purchase. What you need to do is take it a step further for them. You should show the viewer what these amazing things will do for them. You need them to know the benefits and picture how incredible they are. Never simply explain what your product does; tell what it will do for the consumer!

Okay, that is truly all you need to understand for getting going. The three crucial tips for creating fantastic sales copy are to write for your target market, use their emotions, and concentrate on the advantages for them. Like I said, there are lots of additional factors, but these are unquestionably a few of the most essential ones. Just be certain you always recall these points when you are writing product sales copy for your products and services.

If you live in a smaller home or apartment and are dreading the thought of putting up all the Christmas decorations along with a tree that threatens to hog all the available floor space and attack you with its branches ever time you try to squeeze past, there is a solution that you might find interesting. The simple solution is to go without a tree altogether, but that is often not desirable especially if you love having a really festive feel to your home at this time of the year. A better solution is to buy a slim tree!

Believe it or not, there are specialist slim artificial Christmas trees that are available in the usual stores as well as online that are affordable and still look great while taking up only a fraction of the floor space that a regular tree would take. You are not limited to a few choices of design either. These slim trees come in a variety of heights and widths to suit every size of room. They also come in a great choice of colors.

So if you like the idea of an artificial tree that looks real, you can opt for a regular green colored tree that will defy identification as being artificial until you get really close up. Alternatively, you can go for a different color to give your room a bit of uniqueness. White is the most popular color of tree after green as it emulates a tree covered in snow. For the adventurous, there are slim trees that come in blue, red, purple, pink or even black if that’s what floats your boat!

You can get standard trees that are unlit so you can decorate them yourself with lights and whatever else you want, or you can get trees that are pre-lit to save you the hassle of fighting with last year’s light wires that have turned into a bad case of tangled spaghetti. Of course if you prefer to get really creative, you could go with a brightly colored tree, say blue and decorate it with red or yellow lights for a really cool effect. If you want something even more stunning, why not go for a black slim tree with red lights!

How ever you end up decorating your slim tree this year, remember that thanks to its size, you will have room to walk around its girth without having to lose weight fast or have your back to the walls in all sides. And you won’t have to worry about tripping over any unruly lower branches extending out the doorway!

We all need to start somewhere when we take up a new sport and even though bike riding is enjoyed by people of all ages, there is a lot to know about bicycles if you have never ridden one before. The imposing task of buying your first bike can be daunting and this is no less the case if you are planning on buying a mountain bike or a road bike.

There are a few features of the bike that are most important if you are getting one that will suit your body type or the type of riding you are planning on doing. Riding over particularly rough terrain will require a bike that can stand up to the more rigorous conditions. This is in stark contrast to riding over paved roads and bike paths.

The type of riding you are going to do will determine the type of bike that should be bought. Three critical aspects will come in to play that must then be considered and they are the type of tires on the bike, the forks and the saddle.

The tires of a mountain bike differ from bike to bike and they can very quickly reveal the sort of terrain that the bike is best suited for. The bulky, wide tires that provide plenty of traction have been designed for riding over rugged terrain while narrower tires with a smoother tread are more for the pavement. These smoother tires will provide you with a greater ability for speed on the smoother surfaces.

A mountain bike fork is the point of the bike where the bulk of the force and shock is going to be handled while the bike is doing the hard work. You should be looking for shock absorbers if you are planning on doing rough terrain riding. A bike that is equipped with a good set of shock absorbers on the forks are going to feel far more comfortable than one that doesn’t.

The bicycle saddle, no matter whether the bicycle is designed for the road or off-road riding is one of the most crucial parts of the bike. It is one of three points where the body comes in contact with the bike so, in terms of comfort, using the correct saddle is a factor that will determine your enjoyment level while riding. If you are planning on throwing your mountain bike around over all kinds of terrain it is more likely that you will require a saddle with less padding. More sedate riding will find you pedalling while seated and so your saddle should be more cushioned.

Although bicycles come equipped with stock accessories it is possible to make changes to suit your specific riding style. This, of course, costs money and it would be far more preferable to find a bike that is already equipped with the set up that will meet your needs from the very start. Take the time to choose a mountain bike that provides you with the accessories that you need to save you the hassle of having to track them down separately.

The volume of families choosing natural products is rising greatly each year and for good reasons; they really are better for your well being and the planet. One of the tendencies increasing the most inside the “organic living” culture is the utilization of organic bar soap. In this post I am going to talk about some of the logic behind why using natural bar soap is ideal for you and your home.

Recently there has been a movement for healthier eating all over the world so a lot more people are converting towards organic foods. This health movement has grown into using all-natural products on the skin and around your home also. Therefore, all-natural bar soap and other pure cleaning solutions have gained a lot of acceptance now that people are realizing their benefits.

Due to the fact genuinely natural bar soaps only use organic substances, they are far better for your skin, excellent for the environment, and just plain healthier overall. Also, the majority of the natural soap bars are scented by their ingredients so they smell great, and are naturally coloured too. Numerous foods have amazing smells that they will add to the soap, for instance coconuts and oranges, and these tend to be used when creating natural soap.

Even so, there isn’t any doubt that the best selling factor for pure bar soap is that they are fantastic for your skin. The genuine ingredients used to make them are also what give them a terrific lather and natural moisturizing properties. In addition to that, they go through a all-natural soap making process so they retain all of their glycerin, which is ordinarily removed from typical commercial soap. Glycerin is a rather good moisturizer so that gives organic soap another edge right away.

Yet another excellent thing regarding these natural soaps is that often times they’ve got natural exfoliating properties. Actually, a lot of high end health spas utilize various kinds of all-natural soaps as part of their soothing spa therapies. When you have your own at home, you get to indulge your skin every single day similar to the way a spa would, but without the massive costs.

You should also remember that the vast majority of commercially made bar soap contains artificial lathering agents, artificial colors, and a whole bunch of substances most people cannot even pronounce. Nearly all of the antibacterial and antimicrobial cleansers include triclosan, which is a harmful chemical known to cause cancer. Skin is actually porous and absorbent so it soaks in whatever comes in contact with it. Long-term use of those soaps filled with toxins will cause your body to store them and you really don’t want all those chemicals inside your body! You should also use a natural body cream for the same reasons.

Additionally, those severe chemicals and toxins wind up finding their way into our environment. Anytime that lather washes down your drain, the toxins are going with it into the eco-system. Thus, organic, all-natural, homemade soap is a superior alternative to use for numerous reasons.

One of the more popular ways of enjoying a freedom filled vacation is to get into a big RV and drive off into the sunset, letting the road take you to wherever new and interesting places it will. This is a truly unfettered way of vacationing as it frees you from the constraints of having to book hotels or resorts in advance, or even be fixed in one location if you don’t want to. But what happens when you have a physical disability that limits your ability to travel?

The good news is that even if you need a wheelchair to get around, it doesn’t stop you from enjoying an open road RV experience. There are several handicapped RV models that you can either purchase if you can afford them or rent is you can’t and get away on the road to discovery just like anyone else. These specially customized and adapted RVs have wider entry doors, and internal aisles for easy access by wheelchair users with wheelchair ramps as standard to enable you to easily get in and out of the vehicle.

This means that a physical limitation need not confine you to the kind of vacation that has to be specially tailored to your needs. That’s because you can enjoy the freedom that a fully equipped and adapted RV can give you to enjoy a vacation in any place that an RV can go.

An RV that has been custom built to include all the necessities to make them as accessible and usable as the home of the person with disabilities is really like a home away from home on wheels. They are equipped with full handicap bathroom facilities that you would expect to find such as grab rails, a lower washbasin with long faucet handles and an open faced shower with a seat plus a toilet that is set at the right height for easy transfer from a wheelchair. The internal aisles and doors are wider than normal to permit access by a wheelchair and there are ample grab rails to facilitate easy movement between rooms and transferring from wheelchair to seats or the bed.

With an RV, you can stop for an impromptu overnight stay just about any place that is safe to do so and that doesn’t break any local bylaws. It truly gives you the freedom to explore a county or state if you have the time. Or you can just let the open road take you to wherever it goes and find some hidden gems in interesting small towns, great landscape views and local art and crafts that you would never have found by sticking to the usual tourist trails.

Being a person with disabilities doesn’t exclude you from this great experience any more thanks to these specially modified RVs. So consider this as an option for your next vacation and you will not be disappointed!

Every now and then you come across a new manufacturer or a new product that may have slipped under the guard of the mainstream consumers. This happens in all industries and the archery business is no different. Bow manufacturing is a very competitive business with all companies striving to strike a balance between speed, comfort and accuracy. The various different set-ups and developments to give new bows the edge is, at times, almost undetectable.

So when a new compound bow manufacturer releases a compound bow the rush is on to check it out and try to determine what has been brought to the table.

The Quest range of bows by archery accessory company G5 Outdoors Company has only been available for a few years now, but the various bows are becoming quickly accepted by the hunting community. The fact that the bows are pretty blazing fast certainly helps with the speed demons just loving them. The Quest Primal is the hunting bow that would probably appeal to the bulk of hunters who are after brute force in their stopping power. The bow has an IBO rating of 332 feet per second and, according to those who have used it, it is smooth yet extremely aggressive.

Some of the features of the Quest Primal compound bow that make it a desirable bow include a cam system that the company has named the SYNC Cam, a modular cam system that operates on a twin track for smooth operation. The riser provides a solid pivot point because it is forged and then 100% machined aluminium. It is also equipped with a fully adjustable string suppression system as well as BowJax Limb Silencers to assist as much as possible in providing a quiet, vibration free release.

Something that might appeal to a smaller section of the archery community is the fact that it is a bow that very few people will have seen or used before. If you get some kind of perverse pleasure over being different to the crowd or fancy yourself as a bit of a trendsetter, the Quest Primal will be right up your alley.

When all is said and done the Quest Bowhunting compound bows are extremely reliable bows that have been produced by a company that has quite a lot of experience in the archery game for some time now. Bows such as the Primal are just an indication that these guys aren’t playing around with their foray into the compound bow field.

The amount of people who are suffering from back pain is in constant increase due to various reasons of which one of the most important is the positions at which we work all day. Because we are sitting down all the time, our hips are tilted which cause an unwanted position in our lower back – this can cause compression in the lower back intervertebral discs, that can cause nerve impingement which will eventually cause serious back pain. The Back2life continuous motion back massager can help you with these problems.

Pain in the back isn’t always caused by nerve impingement, but also muscle cramps and tension. When you have tense muscles they have poor circulation which means that they are not getting enough oxygen and they are not getting rid of metabolic waste products such as lactic acid which is a normal by product when you have working muscles. It causes pain as you might now – when you do intensive muscle work it builds in your muscles and you start having pain.

Since the Back2Life continuous motion back massager keeps your legs moving, it helps you loosen and move your hips. When your hips are constantly moving they are slowly loosening up the muscles in your lower back, and because the movement is passive – the muscles are moving and stretching but they are not contracting as the movement comes from the massager – you are not causing more lactic acid and other issues. The movement itself will help pump more blood in to the muscles and get rid of the waste products.

Thanks to the passive stretching and shortening of the muscles you are able to relax and stretch not only the muscles, but also the intervertebral discs. If they have been under uneven pressure for long times, they might need some manipulation that is caused by this type of easy movement. You must remember one importan thing though.

The Back 2 Life back massager isn’t something that you will feel when it is working. Most people get frustrated as they don’t feel the kneading of typical back massagers, and they judge it because of that. “It cant work because it’s not causing any pain”. The effect that you will get will be very good, but it will take time and repeated treatments to see it – you might have to use the machine for 15 minutes at least twice a day to get permanent results, but you will experience relief right after the first use as well.

Many people find it easy to use, and that is why they are constantly using it twice a day for 15 minutes at a time. Some people who are going through a difficult pain period will have to use the continuous motion massage more than twice a day, but since the machine is compact and easy to use, they can keep it with them when they go to work and use it on their break – sometimes while they are working. All you have to do is lie on your back and lift your legs up and let the machine do the work!

When you have been happily getting on with your life for all this time and then one day you overhear a work colleague talking about how fat you’ve become lately to another person, it can bring you down to Earth with a very unkind bump. You may not have even noticed the extra weight creeping up on you over so much time, but on closer inspection, you realize the awful truth is that those unkind words were not spoken in jest. The natural reaction to such a discovery is to stop eating just about everything in a vain attempt to shed some weight as fast as you possible can.

You get online and start reading up on as many of the rapid weight loss tips that you can find and are determined to put them into action. But is this the right way to go about losing weight?

Just picture the scenario for a moment. Before they figured out how to farm and keep livestock for food, our early cave dwelling ancestors had to rely on catching their food to survive. That was no easy task, especially with inadequate weapons and sketchy at best hunting skills. They could go many days without food and then get lucky with a substantial kill. Then the family or tribe would eat heartily, gorging themselves on the sudden supply of abundance until it was all gone. Then it would be another wait for the next kill when the tribe could satisfy their hunger once more.

How did those ancestors survive through the times of no food, which could go on for many days or even weeks?

Our bodies are instinctively programmed to store food as fat in times of plenty to get us through the subsequent lean times, while slowing he metabolism so we use less energy. We still carry those ancestral instincts today, although we rarely if ever have to endure such lean times. What generally happens is we have too much food to eat and our bodies happily store the excess in preparation for the lean times, which never come. So we gain weight and eventually become obese.

Let’s return to the situation at hand. Suddenly you stop eating to try and lose weight, but what happens? Your body simply goes into starvation mode and ekes out the bare minimum of its stored energy so you can survive. You may lose weight rapidly at first, but the rate of weight loss slows dramatically after a few days. As soon as you start eating normally again, your body straight away starts preparing for the next lean time by storing as much fat as it can. You gain all the weight back fast plus a few pounds extra for your trouble!

As you can see, this is not a good way to get slim and is prone to failure most of the time. It is far better to lose weight slowly in a structured, measured strategy of a sensible low calorie diet coupled with some daily physical exercise to boost your metabolism and maintain a steady rate of weight lost over time so that in the long term you can keep it off and enjoy a slimmer, healthier body because of it.

I’ve been thinking about my health quite a bit these days. You know how they tell us we have to get our five a day? Well, I’ve always thought this was loads of effort. But now I know a real easy way to treat my body like a temple. How about making smoothies at home? I tell you, it is great fun and it’s really easy as well. If found a site that gives decent juicer reviews and explains about the differences between the different kinds that we can get. I’m no expert so I decided to go for a cheap machine just in case I don’t start using it regularly. But I’m pretty happy with my progress after the first month.

Okay, okay, I haven’t used it every day but I’ve definitely used it more days than not. Part of the reason for not using it is coz I didn’t have any fruits and veg to juice. This is something that I’ll get better at as time goes on. It really just comes down to preparation. If you have fresh fruit and veg in the house then it’s pretty easy to make juices and smoothies.

What I like about smoothies is that they’re quite meal like. So if you want to get really healthy, it’s easy enough to swap a meal for a smoothie. Makes for quite a bit of washing up though. Coz then I have to wash my juicer and my blender. But I’m digging the vibe so far. I’m just beginning to find out how good avocados are for my health. And guess what? They don’t taste as bad as I thought. Did you know that they have about three times the potassium as bananas? They’ve got tons of good fats too. I’ve only started to realize that fat isn’t that bad for me, crap foods, not fats are what make us girls put on weight…

I’m such a fan of European culture. My husband and I started collecting European antiques and ornaments way back in 2000. Well, not really those very expensive antiques, more like stuff that looks like a European antique! That probably sounds a bit lame, but the fact is that real antiques, especially when it comes to large pieces of furniture, are simply way out of our price range. I’m talking tens of thousands of dollars and that’s before you consider transportation costs.

We just a bought a new house and we wanted to furnish it with European-inspired fixtures. Being a fanatic of that genre of furniture, I was very excited to go shopping! Then again, when you live in a country that’s literally half the world away from Europe, it’s often hard to look for furniture pieces. You can pretty much forget going to a shopping mall furniture shop and finding anything with any style at all. Our main aim was to track down a range of suitably classy canopy beds, as my husband and I have always wanted one in our main master bedroom. Shopping locally we were getting nowhere fast.

But thank God for internet shopping!!! I was able to find this great canopy bed that was the perfect fit for my new home’s theme! Wynwood Furniture’s Palencia California King Size Canopy Bed was just perfect — it was made of hardwood, it had intricate designs, and it was all for a very affordable price too. What’s even better is that it was literally delivered to my doorstep. I so love this bed! It’s worth every penny spent! Most importantly it has that great period look about it. It may not be a real antique but it looks a million bucks!