I frequent holiday websites quite a lot thinking of ideas for the next family holiday, whether it be relaxing on a beach or skiing in the Alps I try to make it a new and exciting holiday. Although we have travelled to many European countries like France, Spain, Greece and Turkey on our holidays, we have never holidayed in this country.

When I was a child my family used to travel down the Cornwall, so I looked into renting a cottage online. There are literally hundreds of deals online starting from just £200 for 7 nights and can sleep up to 8 people. With flights getting more expensive and the exchange rates struggling, holidaying in England might not be such a bad idea.

Cornwall has lots of things to do including surfing and wind surfing, but there are also lots of places to visit like Clovely, Tintagel Castle and Land’s End. I can’t believe I haven’t thought of this before, imagine the money I’ve spent on flights and hotels for the family, when we could just all get into the car, drive down to Cornwall and have our own holiday cottage in the countryside.

I’ll definitely keep this in mind for next year’s family holiday!

Kingsway hall is a fours star rated hotel situated in London’s Covent Garden. Kingsway is ideal for all situations, whether it be business or pleasure and contains 170 luxurious rooms each providing: air conditioning, Satellite T.V and 24 hour Broadband. Each room is spacious and contains king-sized beds, fitted with the finest linen. Fitted with a power shower and mini bar, Kingsway Hall has to be first class comfort.

As well as the bedrooms, there are also conference rooms available to hire, with nine different rooms to choose from, and a capacity of up to 150, Kingsway Hall’s conference rooms are sure to give off a professional atmosphere.

Kingsway Hall Hotel also provides many leisure facilities for you to experience and relax in including the large circular spa, the gymnasium and the steam rooms. Why not relax in the Jacuzzi?

Kingsway has something for everyone with Covent Garden’s and Oxford Street close by for shopping, and many local pubs and clubs to enjoy. Why not indulge yourself in culture and visit local attractions like The London Eye, The British Museum, Theatre Land, or dining out –just to name a few.

Kingsway Hall also provides various packages to help you save money and to create an enjoyable experience for all, some example of these include: ‘The Kingsway Hall Theatre Package’ and ‘The Tour Offer.’ I highly recommend this hotel; it is one of the best hotels in London and great for everyone!

Me and my wife have always wanted to visit Berlin; a city filled with history (although not all good), but also encompasses shopping, entertainment and of course food and drink that only the Germans could do. My wife’s birthday is in September, so I plan to take her there for a long weekend.

I’ve been looking on the internet for cheap flights and they are quite reasonable, BMI have them for £211 for both of us for three days. I’ve also had a little look at hotels on the Expedia website and for three nights in the centre of Berlin starts at about £175, but I don’t mind pushing the boat out as it is my wife’s birthday.

We will sit down tonight and sort out where we want to stay and book the flights to Berlin and hotel sometime this week.

Well it looks like Glasto might be going cashless next year, but they must offer a refund option in case you have money left over. We can imagine that people would put extra money on if they knew that they could get it refunded. I mean there are loads of t shirt printing booths offering custom shirts and even tie die and then even the official Merchandise stands would probably see increased sales.

Also who would hold the cash Mr Evis well he’ll get a nice bit of interest from all that cash.

Hopefully going cashless won’t have any major negative effects on Glasto but only time will tell.

I’m quite lucky that I have a group of good mates and we hang out all the time, so when one of them is getting married it’s time to sort out a stag party. We were looking at going to a city like Liverpool or London for a couple of nights, but looking at the cost (especially for hotel rooms), we have decided to rent a holiday villa in Portugal for a week.

We are looking at the Algarve in the south of Portugal and have already found a couple of villas from between €1200 – €2000 for a week, which have private swimming pools and large terraces to have barbeques and chill out on.

The stag party isn’t until the end of September and the final figures on who’s coming aren’t in yet (I think there are 10 of us so far), but we hope to have it all booked within a fortnight. I can’t wait, what could be better than chilling out in a holiday villa, next to a private pool with a cold beer in your hands?

My brother came round for some beers last night while we watched some of the Winter Olympics coverage from Vancouver. A few of the women’s skiers took nasty falls in the downhill event, i mean they must be doing 80mph at least so I presume it’s like coming of a motorbike with a slightly softer landing if you hit soft snow hit ice then I guess it’s like concrete.

I’ve really been enjoying the BBC coverage of Vancouver 2010, they recently came under fire for sending more reporters to the Olympics than Team GB had Olympians.

This morning I went downstairs to find my brother had left all his smoking gear, rolling papers, tobacco, filters and his tobacco tin. Hopefully he’ll get them picked up tonight. He’ll probably come round on his quad and annoy all my neighbours. He’s got a Yamaha 700 Raptor with twin exhausts so it makes a right noise, and the worst part is he hast to warm it up before he leaves so he’ll be having a fag outside for 10 minutes before he leaves.

Personal injury claims are expected to increase in all parts of the country because of the harsh winter and the heavy snow falls in January with more now expected throughout February. This is due to icy roads and treacherous pavements at this time of year, which has been further exacerbated by some of the heaviest snow falls seen in this country for 30 years or more. Solicitors specialising in No Win No Fee claims are anticipating a rash of claims due to the adverse conditions that have been experienced, both through icy roads as well as pavements. The range of injury claims can be as routine as someone slipping on ice to more unusual causes such as being hit by a huge amount of snow falling from a roof.

Although the recent legal review of the country’s civil justice system headed by Lord Justice Jackson has recommended change to the No Win No Fee system, this will require primary legislation and anyone who has suffered during the recent spell of bad weather should contact a No Win No Fee specialist for advice about claiming compensation for injury or hardship that has been caused. The system more properly know as “conditional fee arrangement” can mean that your case will be assessed and if the solicitor considers that there is a good likelihood of success he will take this on for an agreed fee, usually an aftermarket insurance premium. If they won their claim, the solicitor acting for you earns their fee and usually a success fee (bonus) from the opposing party, typically an insurance company. If you win you should also keep 100% of any compensation sum awarded to you!

La Norma sits with a view of the Vanoise National Park of France; it’s near the Italian border and is a great place for ski holidays. It has eight green runs, six blue, 11 red runs, and two black. It is also good for snowboarders, and has mostly downhill pistes. Some of the pistes are above the 2500 metre level, so snow is very consistent, and the area has snow cannons to keep snow on the other slopes; 19 ski lifts service the area.

Six airports service the region. The Geneva and Chambery airports are quite close – within two hours of the area. Eight hotels are close to the slopes, and some of them have spas, saunas, and exercise rooms. Several restaurants and nightclubs are nearby, and you can sample local, French and Italian foods.

The resort of Le Planolet has 16 ski lifts, and 24 different ski slopes encompassing 35 kilometres; there are also 50 kilometres available for cross country skiing. The slopes are in the Northern Alps, along the French-Italian border. The area has 35 km of lifts to serve the area and 70 km of the runs are cross country. The ski lifts go from 900 metres to 1,800 metres, and there are six green runs, five blue, nine red, and four black. You can also snowboard in the area.

Several fine restaurants allow visitors to sample the local cuisine. You can obtain hotel accommodation right on the slopes, and there are 11 other hotels located across the resort.

The area sits almost midway between Grenoble and Chambery airports (little more than an hour away), and the Lyon airport is about two hours away.

I read in the paper yesterday that naked cruising (the cruise ship kind, not the other kind….) was the big prediction for summer 2010 according to those in the UK travel industry. Apparently, the tourist industry is going to actively target naturists, and cruise companies will play an important role in attracting new and naked customers.

I’m not a naturist myself and, to be honest, the thought of strolling around with my and my wife’s bits on show is frankly terrifying. Suddenly a cruise holiday becomes less of a relaxing break and more of the stuff of nightmares . Never mind being naked yourself, fancy having to look at naked people all day long and night – naked people of all shapes and sizes and ages. I’m sure this is just PR (and pretty good it is to as it made all the papers yesterday) but I know the wife is looking at cruise deals for August so I’ll be asking her to make sure to check the small print very carefully in case she books us on one of those nudey cruises by mistake!!

I read an interesting article on the BBC website today about a prototype cycle aid called the Copenhagen Wheel. This new project developed by MIT, with help from Ducati Energia and the Italian Ministry for the Environment promises to change the way we cycle, whether to and from work or just for fun.

The Copenhagen Wheel can be fitted to almost any bicycle and features an oversized central hub, housing various electronic gadgets designed to make it easier to ditch your car and take your bike instead. The wheels hub can store energy every time the rider pulls the brakes, which can be used to give the rider a boost when riding uphill or negotiating traffic; this is similar to the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) used by Formula One cars.

As well as giving riders a handy boost, the Copenhagen Wheel also has a series of sensors and Bluetooth connectivity, which can connect to a users iPhone giving information about the speed of the bike, direction and the distance travelled as well as collecting data on air pollution and even where the riders friends are.

The Copenhagen Wheel is expected to go into production next year; there is no information on how much it will cost at the moment.

Will this new product get people out of their cars and on to their bikes? It might sway a few people who are thinking about it, but I can see a bigger benefit to the people who already ride their bikes to work and the fact that you can fit it to almost any bicycle makes it even more of a beneficial project.