How I became a collector

In fact I haven't got the patience to engage myself in any regular and continuous activities. At least I thought so until ... Well, I'll tell you from the very beginning.

Three years ago our class went on a tour of old Russian towns. We took along with us a great deal of souvenirs for the local schoolchildren to present them with. As to me, I had bought about thirty or forty various badges and post-cards with the view of our city.

Well, we enjoyed our journey very much. We saw many interesting things and tried to remember every place we visited. In those towns we were warmly received by our friends who gave us all sorts of things in memory of our acquaintance and stay there.

By the end of our tour I had found myself a possessor of quite a number of different badges and each of those little pieces of iron could tell me a lot about the places I visited. On returning home I went to see my friend who had been ill and couldn't join us in our travel. Telling him the story of our journey I showed the badges and explained them. When my friend saw the badges which I brought his eyes sparkled. He took each of them and scrutinized¹ it for a long time. We spent the whole evening talking about the badges. I understood that if I had presented him with the badges that would have been a great consolation² for the fact that he didn't go with us and I said: "Alec, what if I give you all those things for good?" "Oh, no!" said he, "You hardly realize what a valuable collection of badges you have! It would be very nice of you to go on collecting them. I'm sure none of the boys can boast³ of such a collection."

I followed his advice. Last year I added to my collection a hundred of badges which I exchanged with the British, French, German and Polish schoolboys who had a rest in «Artek». Several Italian and Swedish badges were presented to me by my elder sister after her tour of foreign countries.

Thus I became a regular collector. Collecting badges has become my hobby. I didn't know it was such a fascinating business.

¹to scrutinize [′skru:tinaiz] – пристально рассматривать

²consolation – утешение

³to boast – хвастать

Questions

1. Tastes differ. Can you say the same about hobbies?

2. Have you chosen a hobby according to your character and taste?

3. Which hobby groups do you know?

4. The most popular hobby group is doing things, isn't it? What kind of activities does this group include?

5. What do you know about gardening?

6. Do you like computer games?

7. Are you fond of making things?

8. Do you know any hobbies of the famous people?

9. Have you ever collected anything?

10. What can be collected?

11. Do you agree that learning can be the most exciting aspect of a hobby? Why?

Unit 13. Meals

WORDS AND EXPRESSIONS

mashed potatoes mushroom soup to treat to be thirsty to lay the table to wash up	porridge fried eggs to roast to peel to stir to stew	dish broth to fry to taste to boil
to be hungry as a hunter to pour some water into the souce-pan (kettle) Help yourself. Is it tasty? Do you care for fish? Try this dish, it will be to your taste. May I help you to another piece of pie? Pass me the brown bread, please. What is your favourite dish? May I have another helping of porridge? I haven't tasted anything of the kind.
salt-cellar sugar basin mustard-pot pepper-box bread-dish	vinegar beef pork veal mutton	cabbage cucumber tomato onion carrot