11. Compose the essay about the house of your own dream.

III. My working day and my day off

1. Read and translate the text. After reading tell in a few words about your week day. My working day

I usually start my day with getting up and doing all things that everybody does in the morning: washing, having breakfast, etc. Also, I got used to gather my learning tools: pencils, exercise-books, text-books in the morning. Then I usually go to the university. Fortunately, father takes a car every morning and he often picks me up and drives me to the doors of our university building. And soon the lectures and lessons begin... We have from 2 to 4 lectures every time, depending on day. I like studying in the university more than in the school because in university it is mostly allowed to miss some lectures (of course, later you should take a summary from your mate and copy it). So, a student is much more free, than pupil is. After the lessons I usually return home where I have dinner and start thinking about my ways of spending the rest of the day. Very often I go to my friend’s places. During the early autumn and summer I often go to the sports ground or on the beach. I also like visiting different sports events, for example, soccer matches of in Russian championship. So, the world is full of enjoyable things to do. On returning home I usually start doing my homework (perhaps, it is the most dull part of the day). Having finished it, I open a book and read it or watch TV. At last, I go to the bed. Of course, I would like to tell you more about myself and my working day, but, unfortunately, my time is rather limited and I have got a lot of homework to do. Generally, now you know about my working day enough.

2. Read the text and discuss it. Everyday Life

I wake at about seven o'clock and then it is time for me to get up. I like a cold bath every morning, so I put on my dressing-gown and slippers and go to the bathroom. The water feels very cold on winter mornings, but I rub myself hard with the towel and soon I feel quite warm.

Then I shave, brush my teeth and wash my face and go back to the bathroom to dress. I brush and comb my hair, take a clean handkerchief out of the drawer and go downstairs for breakfast at a quarter past eight. After breakfast I sit and read my morning newspaper and smoke a cigarette, or in summer I have a walk round my garden. I go into my study at nine o'clock and meet my students there, and the day's work begins. At twelve-thirty I have a break for lunch. I usually have this at home, but sometimes I go out for lunch and have a chat with my friends before beginning work again at two o'clock. I generally finish my work by about five o'clock. Then I have a cup of tea and a biscuit, and in summer I spend an hour or so in the garden and play a few games of tennis, or go to the golf club and have a round of golf.

We have dinner at about seven-thirty or eight o'clock, and then we sit and talk, listen to the wireless or watch television, or Mrs. Priestley plays the piano. Sometimes, in the summer, we take out the car and go for a drive in the country; in the winter we go to the cinema or the theatre. But that is not often. I have a lot of work to do, and usually after dinner or supper 1 go to my study and read or write until twelve or one o'clock.

Mrs. Priestley, too, gets up soon after seven and goes downstairs to help Susan with the work. She cleans out the stove and fills it up with coke, so that they get plenty of hot water all day. Then she takes out the ashes from the sitting-room fire and re-lays it with paper and sticks and coal. Then it is all ready to light, and only needs a match put to it.

While Susan is doing that, Mrs. Priestley gets the breakfast ready. She puts the table cloth on the dining-room table and puts out the knives, forks and spoons, and the cups, saucers and plates. Then she goes and cooks the breakfast. She soon has the bacon and the eggs cooking in the frying-pan. She makes toasts, boils the' kettle for tea or coffee, and we are ready to sit down at a quarter past eight.

After breakfast, Susan and Mrs. Priestley clean away the dishes. Then Susan washes and dries them, and Mrs. Priestley goes to do her shopping. Sometimes she goes to the shops — to the butcher's to order the meat, to the grocer's to buy tea, coffee, sugar, etc., but often she rings them up and orders what she wants by phone.

Then Mrs. Priestley and Susan go upstairs to make the beds, dust upstairs and downstairs, and do the carpets with electric-cleaner. It is about eleven o'clock by this time, so Mrs. Priestley changes her clothes and begins to get ready for lunch. After lunch she does some sewing or goes for a walk and visits her friends.

Then I join her for afternoon tea in the sitting-room — usually bringing one or two of my students with me. We have bread and butter (cut thin), jam or honey, cakes and biscuits.

Sometimes, in fact very often, we spend our evenings at home. You see, John is at the University and Margaret is now at a boarding-school and comes home only at the weekends; so, except when they are on holiday, there are only two of us at home. On these quiet evenings we have a very simple supper round the fire in the sitting-room, and when that is over I sometimes work in my study at a book that 1 am writing, but quite often 1 sit in my armchair at one side of the fire with my pipe and, for a change, a detective story. Mrs. Priestley sits on the other side with her book or her sewing; and Sally, our cat, lies on the carpet before the fire or jumps up on my knees. And when the wind is blowing through the trees outside and the rain is beating on the windows, our warm fire seems warmer and more cheerful than ever — and we often think that these "quiet" evenings are the best evenings of all.

(from C.E. Eckersley)