LISTEN AND READ - ADVANCED
[1] When I was about nine or ten, I used to walk to and from school on my own because my
parents went to work. Sometimes I'd walk with a boy called Ollie, who lived round the corner from
me. We were in the same class at school, but I wouldn't say we were close friends – we didn't see
each other when we weren't at school. Anyway, one day Ollie kindly offered to lend me a DVD I
really wanted to watch, so we both called in at his house to get it. I'd never been in his house
before. It was amazing – so many animals everywhere! Cats on every chair and sofa, two dogs
running around, small rodents in cages … and the smell was terrible! It was so off-putting – and the
memory of that smell stayed with me for years.
Maybe that's why I haven't got any pets in my apartment. Going to Ollie's house really put me off
for good!
[2] The summer after I graduated from university, my mother took me on holiday to Paris for a
week. We stayed in a small hotel near the river Seine. My mother told me she had stayed there with
my father shortly after they had married, and a few times during the holiday she stopped and said,
'this brings it all back to me,' or words to that effect. I assumed she was remembering that holiday
with my father, but in fact, her memories went back much further. Her own father had taken her to
Paris when she was a teenager. It was her first holiday abroad and made a huge impression on her,
and it was this earlier holiday which kept coming to her mind.
[3] We live in Manchester, but my dad's family are all from Scotland. He grew up on a farm
right in the far north, surrounded by fields and animals – and near the sea too. It was obviously a
fantastic childhood, and very different from the life my own children have. My dad and his brother
had so much freedom!
When they're together at family parties or other events, they always talk about things that
happened to them as kids, and in particular, they spend ages talking about the adventures they had
while they were exploring the beaches and the caves near their home. The sea was too cold to swim
in, but they had a small boat they would go out in, and it seems they did some amazing things –
although I suspect they're making some of it up!
[4] When I was at primary school, I had school dinners. The food was terrible and the teachers
used to make us finish everything on our plates – or try to, anyway. I vividly remember what
happened one lunchtime, when I was about six. I really didn't want to eat my carrots – I didn't like
carrots – but I couldn't think what to say. So I told the teacher that I couldn't eat them because they
were poisonous. The teacher laughed and I suddenly felt extremely embarrassed. I now work for
my local council and we have a canteen at work. Whenever there are carrots in the canteen, I can't
help thinking of that teacher laughing at me. But I'm fine eating carrots at home or in a restaurant.
[5] I spent the first eight years of my life in Italy, because my parents owned a small hotel there.
Then we moved back here to the UK, which is where my parents are from, and I started going to
school here. It took me a few months to settle in, but after that I was definitely happier in the UK –
I had more friends, for a start.
I'd never really fitted in when I was in Italy because I wasn't Italian and didn't speak the language
fluently. (I always spoke English with my parents.) And the hotel was quite remote, up in the
mountains, so there weren't many other families around. Back in England, I joined a football team
and suddenly I had lots of friends. I never really talked to them about my past, only about things we
had in common – football, mostly! And even now, I don't think much about those years abroad.
They weren't unhappy, exactly – just not very memorable.