2.1 An ideal holiday

“I want to be alone”, said Tom Smith as he set off on his holiday. The year before, he had been on a disastrous and unforgettable package tour of “Europe in a Fortnight”; he was rushed from place to place, lost his suitcase keys on the second day, found himself thrown together with five hysterical families and their beastly children, and ended up being misunderstood by a waitress when he said to her in, his best French, “Je vais à dix heures” and the waitress brought him butter, thinking he said “Je veux du beurre”.

Tom Smith headed for the lonely moors of Yorkshire. It rained incessantly. Even when it stopped for a while the sky remained overcast, so that Tom’s mood gradually became as gloomy as the weather. The accommodation in the dreary hotel was comfortless, the food unexciting, drinking on one’s own was no fun either. Tom decided that this was a waste of much-longed-for holiday, and he was about to pay the bill and quit, when he noticed a familiar face at the reception desk.

• “Now this is a surprise, Tom”, said Harold. “Don’t you remember me?” An old schoolmate, it dawned on Tom.

• “No, Harold! What are you up to in this godforsaken place?”

• “I am here with my family. Meet my wife, Karen… Don’t say you’re just leaving!”

• “Well, I was so fed up that I was just about to pack up and go.”

• “You can’t do that to me. As soon as I saw you, I had visions of angling, long walks, chats about old times and canasta in the evenings.”

• “Well, if you put it like that, I’ll stay.”

And suddenly the bad weather didn’t matter. The bleak hotel felt homely. “Perhaps a holiday depends on genial company after all,” - Tom admitted in the end.

2.2 Answer the questions:

1. What does a good holiday depend on? 2. What is the best (the cheapest, the ideal, a very expensive, the most useful) way of spending one’s holiday? 3. Why is it necessary to plan one’s holiday well in advance? 4. If it is historical sights that you are looking for, how would you arrange your holiday? And is it value for money you are after? 5. If you want to go abroad, what possibilities are there? 6. Say what people in your country usually do during their annual paid holiday?

2.3 An ideal holiday

When I was a boy every holiday I had seemed ideal to me. All day, I seem to remember, I played on the sands with my friends. We made sandcastles with huge yellow walls, and watched the incoming tide destroy them; we played football, we splashed each other in the water and shrieked with excitement. When the tide went out, we climbed over the slippery rocks and stared down at the fish and the seaweed in the rock-pools.

In those far-off days the sun seemed to shine constantly and the water was always warm. Sometimes we left the beach and walked in the country, exploring ruined houses and dark woods and climbing trees that overhung streams.

Although I am now an adult, my idea of a good holiday is much the same as it was. I still like the sun and the warm sand and the sound of waves breaking on the beach. I no longer wish to build sandcastles, but I love sunbathing and the feel of sand running through my fingers, and I look forward to sitting down to a good meal in the evening. I think too, that I prefer travelling. I want to smell different smells; I want to see different kinds of trees, flowers and kinds of domes. Above all, I want to listen to different musical rhythms from those I am used to.

But I still need my companions — not, of course, to play on the sands and eat ices with, but to talk to on warm moonlit nights.

Sometimes I wonder what my ideal holiday will be when I am old. All I shall want to do then, I expect, will be to lie in bed, reading books about children who make sandcastles with huge yellow walls, who watch the incoming tide, who make themselves sick on too many ices...