Their homes are their castles

In English homes fireplaces have always been the natural centre of interest in a room. People may like to sit at a window on a summer day, but for many months of the year they prefer to sit round the fire and watch the dancing flames.

In the Middle Ages the fireplaces in the halls of large castles were very wide. Such wide fireplaces may still be seen in old inns and in some of them there are even seats inside the fireplace.

When coal fires became common, fireplaces became much smaller. Crates were used to hold the coal in fire­places. Above the fireplace there was usually a shelf on which there were often clocks and photographs.

The English like flowers very much. If you don't believe it's true, look at all gardening books in the book-shops, find out, how many flowers arranging societies there are in England - thousands and thousands. It is a useful hobby because it doesn't harm anyone. In winter
people pick up seed catalogues and look at the coloured pictures of summer flowers. Even people with a small patch of ground in towns like to grow flowers, and the people who have never seriously tried to speak any foreign language carefully learn the Latin names of the
flowers they plant so that they can tell, these names to their friends.

If you want to please an Englishman (or English­woman) be very polite about his (her) garden.

When two Englishmen meet they often begin their conversation talking about the weather. The weather is always a topic for conversation and a good one. They do this because they do not know each other well enough to talk about personal matters; they may not wish to talk about politics until they know each other better, so they are glad to have a topic about which they cannot quarrel with each other. When they go abroad Englishmen often surprise people of other nations by this tendency to talk about the weather, a topic of conversation that other people do not find so interesting.

ENGLISH FOOD

The Englishman likes a good breakfast. To him a good breakfast means porridge with milk, fish, bacon and eggs, toast and marmalade, tea or coffee. In fact it is the same from day to day, from, January to January.

The English like their, toast cold, it is cut in triangles.

For lunch they usually have soup, fruit juice, cold meat and salad, or fish, or roast, meat and vegetables, then goes an apple tart, or a hot milk pudding, cold fruit
salad or ice-cream. From 4 to 6 there is a very light meal called afternoon tea. It consists of a cup of tea and a cake. This became a kind of ritual. At this time "everything stops for tea" in England, the whole nation is at ease drinking tea.

Dinner (usually 6 p.m.) is much like lunch and in many families the last main meal of the day. For supper they have tea or coffee with biscuits. Almost every meal finishes with coffee (with or without milk), cheese and butter.

This is what the magazine "Modern English" writes about English food: "The English are not interested in food. Their food is rather dull and unimaginative. Take, for example, the way of cooking vegetables. The English housewife boils them in salt water. They use frozen, canned and precooked food - simply because it saves time".

IX. Выполните сле­дующие задания:

1. Расскажи своему сверстнику из Великобритании о своем любимом празднике.

2. Расспроси его о традиционных английских блюдах и расскажи ему о национальной еде твоей страны.

3. Ты приехал в Лондон на зимние каникулы. Расспроси своего сверстника о том, как лондонцы празд­нуют Рождество.

X. Дайте соответствующие русские эквиваленты следующих пословиц и объясните их значение.

1. "Every dog is a lion at home".

2. "A man is known by the company he keeps".

3. "Every cook praises his own broth".

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