Additional words and expressions
amateur angler, photographer numismatics
a photograph (a shot, a snapshot) lead-toy soldier
ballroom dancing society match-box label
folk dancing society post card post-card with views of London
to photograph (to take a photo)
to cut out
to give pleasure
to print (to make prints)
What do you do at your leisure?
He is keen on angling.
Collecting illustrated post-cards gives me much pleasure.
I haven't printed the snapshots yet.
Hobbies
Hobbies differ like tastes. If you have chosen a hobby according to your character and taste you are lucky because your life becomes more interesting.
Hobbies are divided into four large classes: doing things, making things, collecting things, and learning things.
The most popular of all hobby groups is doing things. It includes a wide variety of activities, everything from gardening to travelling and from chess to volleyball. Gardening is one of the oldest of man's hobbies. It is a well-known fact that the English are very fond of gardening and growing flowers, especially roses. Both grown-ups and children are fond of playing different computer games. This is a relatively new hobby but it is becoming more and more popular.
Making things includes drawing, painting, making sculpture, designing costumes, handicrafts. Two of the most famous hobby painters were President Eisenhower and Sir Winston Churchill. Some hobbyists write music or play musical instruments. President Bill Clinton, for example, plays the saxophone.
Almost everyone collects something at some period in his life: stamps, coins. match-boxes, books, records, postcards, toys, watches. Some collections have no real value. Others become so large and so valuable that they are housed in museums and galleries. Many world-famous collections started in a small way with one or two items. People with a good deal of money often collect paintings, rare books and other art objects. Often such private collections are given to museums, libraries and public galleries so that others might take pleasure in seeing them.
No matter what kind of hobby a person has, he always has the opportunity of learning from it. By reading about the things he is interested in, he is adding to what he knows.
Learning things can be the most exciting aspect of a hobby.
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