Dwelling and its Types

We can hardly say that today there exist the problem of choosing a type of housing. Everyone can find something he or she likes. For instance, some people prefer to live somewhere in the country in a small, but cozy cottage or a large farmhouse. To my mind those people, who prefer this type of dwelling really adore nature: they want to wake up to songs of birds, to enjoy beautiful landscapes, to breath fresh air or in other words they want to have a calm and measured rhythm of life. Usually such people keep the poultry and the cattle. One of advantages living in such a house is that you have your own land where you can grow fruit and vegetables, make flowerbeds and plant beautiful flowers, lay out an orchard, etc. You can also build some outhouses like a green-house, a garage, a tool shed or an arbor. But the greatest disadvantage of living in a farmhouse or in a cottage, in my opinion, is that it takes much time to get to the nearest town, but if you have a car it isn't a problem for you. That's why I think over the possibility to live in a cottage when I retire.

There are also those who like semi-detached houses or, as the Americans call them, duplexes. I believe that such houses attract people because they are less expensive than mansions or bungalows for example and you have only one neighbor as opposed to block of flats. And as you have a neighbor you can always turn to him if you need something, though from time to time your neighbor can disturb you when he repairs his part of the house or listens to music too loudly. But in general I'm sure that it’s quite nice to live in a semi-detached house.

Time and Dates

A year is the average time it takes the earth to go once round the sun. there are 12 months or 52 weeks or 365 days in a year. Every four years there is a leap year. It has 366 days. We all know the names of the months, but not all of us can quite remember how many days there are in each month. There is a little poem to help.

Thirty days has September,

April, June and November.

All the rest have thirty-one,

Excepting February alone,

Which has but twenty-eight days clear,

And twenty-nine in each leap year.

There are seven days in a week, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour and 60 seconds in a minute.

The sun rises in the east in the morning. The beginning of the day is dawn or daybreak. Then comes morning, noon, afternoon, evening and night. We tell the time by means of watches and clocks. Watches are small. We can carry them either in our pockets or wear them on our wrists. The former are called pocket watches and the latter – wrist watches.

A clock is bigger than a watch; it usually stands on a table or hangs on the wall in the house. There are figures on the face of the clock or watch to mark the hours, minutes and seconds. The hands of the clock or watch point to the figures telling us the time.

There are three hands altogether. The biggest hand shows the minutes, the smaller – the hours and the smallest – the seconds.