A high-rise flat
The Browns had to move to a high-rise flat in London because Mr Brown was unemployed for a long time and he couldn't find a job in Cambridge. But living in a high-rise flat can be difficult, particularly if you have lived in a house before. The Browns found it very difficult, although they didn't have many of the problems that people with young children or old people had.
The block of flats they moved to had seventeen storey and they were on the twelfth storey. There were of course stairs and lifts, but sometimes the lifts didn't work. This meant that Sheila Brown had to carry all the shopping up twelve storeys.
When the lift broke, things were even more difficult for old people living alone. They couldn't get up and down the stairs, and so they had to wait until the council repaired the lift. This sometimes took four or five days, and during this time they couldn't leave their flat.
There were of course no gardens, and the children didn't have anywhere to play. So they played in the corridors and up and down the stairs, which became dirtier and dirtier.
Also teenagers broke the public telephones in the block almost every week. So if someone was ill, nobody could call a doctor without going out and finding a telephone in the street.
Perhaps the most difficult problem was the neighbours. Many people came to live in the block not because they wanted to but because they had to. They came when their old houses in the slums became so bad that they could not live in them, or because they didn't have the money to live anywhere else. But they missed their old friends and neighbours. Nobody like the block and most people wanted to move out again as soon as possible, so they didn't want to make friends with other people in the block.
A year after they moved into the flat, the Browns would do almost any thing to get out again.
My home
I. We have a nice flat rather far from the centre of the city. It is in a new five-storey building in Gagarin Avenue. As there are five storeys in the building it has a lift.
Our flat is on the fourth floor. It has all modern conveniences such as central heating, gas, electricity, cold and hot water, and a chute to carry rubbish down.
There are three rooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a hall in our flat.
The dining-room is the largest and most comfortable room in the flat. In the middle of the dining-room we have a square dining-table with six chairs round it. There is a hanging lamp above the table. To the right of the dining-table there is a sideboard with two drawers in it. Near it there is a piano with a piano stool before it.
Between the two large windows there is a little table with a TV set on it. Our TV set is of the latest model. Near the TV set there are two cosy armchairs. Nothing is more pleasant in rainy weather than to sit in a comfortable armchair and watch TV programmes.
A small round table, a divan-bed and a standard lamp are in the left-hand corner. This table is for newspapers and magazines.
The walls of the dining-room are light-green and there are a few prints and water-colours on them.
II. The bedroom is a bit smaller than the dining-room and not so light as there is only one window in it. In this room there are two beds with a bedside-table between them. An alarm-clock and a small lamp with a pink lampshade are on the table. At the opposite wall there is a dressing-table.
In this room we have a built-in wardrobe with coat-hangers to hang clothes on. There is a thick carpet on the floor and plain light-brown curtains on the window.
III. The third room is the study. It is not so large as the dining-room but it is as cosy as all the other rooms.
There is not much furniture in it, only the most necessary pieces. It has a writing-desk with drawers to keep papers in. Pens, pencils, an ink-pot, a writing-pad and a few dictionaries are lying on the desk. There is a telephone on the left. Just behind it is a reading lamp. On the right there is a desk-clock and a calendar. A desk-armchair is standing before it. There are books on the shelves all round the walls of the study. In the right-hand corner there is a bookcase full of books. Among them there are many English books in the original and in translation as I am a student of English.
A small table with a radio is standing in the left-hand corner. Near it there is a sofa with some cushions. In my opinion the study is the best room in our flat.