Lesson 10

Meet the Parkers

• Nora, you look a bit tired. What have you been doing all day?

• I’ve been cleaning the whole house. I said I was going to.

• But I wanted you to wait until the weekend, so that I could help.

• Well, I thought I might as well get on with it. It was about time. The furniture has been looking shabby for months. So this morning I took all the loose covers off the arm-chairs and I washed them. That bit of sun early this afternoon helped to dry them.

• Well, I hope you had a rest this afternoon.

• No, since lunch time I’ve been turning out the rooms upstairs. I haven’t quite finished them yet. I’ve done our room and Robert’s.

• My goodness, you have been working hard.

• You know, Harry, you do make it hard for me to keep the place looking nice when you leave your things about everywhere. For years I’ve been asking you not to keep your books in the kitchen and not to leave your gardening tools inside the house.

• For years I’ve been telling you that you are perfectly free to throw out anything that I leave about if it gets in your way.

• Harry, could you turn out your work room? I’ve been meaning to ask you for days.

• Yes, I will. Hello, who has been playing with my pipes? Three of them are missing.

• Yes, I gave three dirty old pipes to an old man at the door. You haven’t been smoking them lately.

• But Nora, you’ve thrown out my three oldest and best pipes.

• Oh.

Lesson 11

Meet the Parkers

H: Well, Robert, have you made up your mind yet, what you want to do when you leave college?

N: Well, Harry, surely, he is a bit young to decide on his career. He hasn’t even got to college yet.

H: Not at all, Nora. It’s wisest to decide in good time. Look at me for example. I really wanted to be a sailor. But now I spend my days sitting at a desk in an office. Yes, it’s silly to train for the wrong job. And after all, Robert will be going to college soon.

N: Now, if I were a man I’d be a farmer. To see the crops growing, that’s my idea of a good life.

H: Yes, and to see the money rolling in is more important still.

R: Well, that’s not the way I look at it, Dad. It’s the job I care about not the money.

H: Maybe not, but you’ve got to care about the money too, when you have a family to keep.

N: Well, and Peter, he is keen to be a racing motorist or else an explorer.

H: Oh, Peter is not old enough to make up his mind about such things… Well, you haven’t answered my question yet, Robert. What would you like to do?

N: Are you sure you don’t want to be a farmer, Robert or a market gardener?

R: No, I’m sorry, Mum, but I don’t want to at all. I’d rather be a civil engineer. I want to build roads and bridges.

N: Not ships. Isn’t it better to be a shipbuilding engineer?

R: Look here. Is it my career we are planning or yours?

H: All right. All right. There is no need to lose your temper. But you’d better win that scholarship first.