ACTIVITY 147:
Listen to Laura Doomer who is describing a house.
Choose the most appropriate title from the menu and then,
check the correct answer. Don't worry if
there are some words you don't understand: you should be able to get
the general idea.
Now listen again to Laura Doomer while
you check the transcription of her description below.
"Erm ... the loveliest house
that I've ever lived in was one that I lived in with my grandparents
when I was a child. And the name of the house was Crosslands. And I
have some very very happy memories of Crosslands."
"It was ... it seemed so huge to
me as a child. And it had a lovely living room with a piano in it
and a lovely sort of hall with lots of carpets and chests and
antiques and so on. And there was a mysterious room, it was the drawing room, and we only used
it on Sundays, or erm when the vicar came for tea, or Christmas Day or Easter
Day, and I was ... used to be amazed about this room because it had the best
furniture in it but it was covered up with sheets ... it was as if all the
furniture was wearing clothes ... and it seemed to me ridiculous that we couldn't
enjoy this beautiful furniture all the week through really."
"And probably my
favourite room was the kitchen. It had a lovely red flagstone floor, which was
always highly polished, and an Aga, you know one of those big cookers that heats
the whole room so it was always warm there, and there was a kind of
clothes-horse above it that we used to hang all our clothes on, and it was just
... it was lovely. It was a very warm room with baked bread and ... my grandmother
used to make ice cream and we'd eat it in there and ... there was a vegetable
garden leading from there so I spent a lot of time in the vegetable garden
picking peas and eating them ... my grandmother used to get really cross with me
because I used to pick all the vegetables and the fruit for our meals and then
I'd eat half of them, because they tasted so delicious coming fresh from the
garden."
"Now, I went back to
it a few years ago and it was a big mistake. They've modernised it
inside, they've got rid of those lovely old fireplaces ... have just
gone. And they've knocked a wall down so the drawing room and the
living room have become one big modern plastic kind of room."
"But I think what
upset me most about it was the feeling that the house had shrunk, it
had become smaller and that my memory of this lovely large warm
comfortable house had turned into an old house with modernised rooms
inside it. And it taught me a lesson really, that you can't go back
on the past and recapture it. But there's a beautiful memory there."
ACTIVITY 148:
Answer these questions after listening to Laura
describing a house she remembers from her childhood, make deductions to
answer the questions below in the blank spaces.
Then check the alternative answers.
1.
Whose house is Laura describing?
2.
Who is living there now?
ACTIVITY 149:
Now, mark if statements 1-to-8 are TRUE
or FALSE. If necessary, listen to Laura again. Finally,
check your answers.
TRUE
FALSE
1.
When the speaker was a child, she thought the
house was very large.
2.
She couldn't understand why they didn't use
the drawing room every day.
3.
She liked the living room best.
4.
She liked the kitchen because it was warm and
smelt nice.
5.
Her grandmother used to get cross with her for
not helping to pick the vegetables and fruit.
6.
The interior of the house is the same now as
it was when the speaker was young.
7.
When she returned, she felt unhappy at the
size of the house.
8.
She realised it is not a good idea to revisit
the past.
¡¡ Qué hermosos recuerdos de la
niñez!! En la página siguiente Mr. Grammar te explicará
acerca de los usos del PASADO SIMPLE, PASADO PROGRESIVO y PASADO
PERFECTO SIMPLE ...
