Александр Павленко - Английский язык. Темы для экзаменов. Уровень С1

I never met my mother’s father, he died before I was born, but I knew my father’s father when I was smaller. After he split up with his wife he lived together with his sister, who was my great aunt. She never married, or even had a boyfriend as far as I know. She was really an old spinster. They lived a very, very routine life. Every time we went to see them exactly the same things would happen. Every day of their life seemed to be the same. They would wake up, and then my great aunt would make the breakfast, bring it in to my grandfather, my grandfather would read the paper until a certain time, when he would listen to something on the radio, etc, etc.

My grandfather was an interesting man for me. He had a very big garden, and he used to keep bees, which was fascinating. I think, fourteen beehives, as I remember. When we were at school, one time I organized for our class to go to visit him and watch him working with his bees in the garden, which was very interesting for the other children as well. Of course, we always had supplies of fresh honey because of this.

I remember the smell in their house was a little bit old and musty. I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but there was some atmosphere in their house which was like nothing had changed for thirty years. It was very strange for us, as children to go round the old rooms, looking at the pictures on the walls, pictures of old relatives. I remember my grandfather had a big picture of Queen Victoria on his wall. Maybe nothing changed since Queen Victoria’s time, I’m not sure!

My great aunt was a very good musician. She had a piano, and she was the leading second violinist in the city orchestra, which was the Leicester Philharmonic. She spent much of her time practising for concerts.

I think that my musical ability comes from that side of the family, really, because she’s the only member of the older generation of our family who was really known to be musical. As I said, she was a very talented violinist. She always used to encourage me a lot with my music, and to take me to classical music concerts. I remember we went to see Handel’s Messiah , Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. I enjoyed it very much and I really gained a deep love of classical music from her.

I have only one aunt, who is the sister of my father. We always had a very good relationship with them (my aunt, my uncle and their children), although we rarely went to see them, only once a year, maybe at Christmas to exchange presents. I remember that they always gave us very expensive presents and made sure we had a very nice time. Whenever we went to visit them, we would be filled up with cakes and sweets, and given little presents, so we used to like to go to see them, as children.

I think my father is just not the sociable type, and it’s not because he dislikes them that he doesn’t keep a close relationship with his family. Maybe he is just a bit of loner, really.

My aunt and her husband have four children, who are all married now, and they have children, so my aunt and my uncle are grandparents now, which makes me a sort of uncle to a lot of little children, who I haven’t met many times, and I don’t even know the names of.

Nowadays my father and mother both have new partners. My father has a nice girlfriend, who he is planning to move into a new house with. He’s lived in the same house for my whole life, but they are both planning to sell up and go to live further out in the countryside, in a very beautiful place, the Peak district, which is a little bit north of where I was born.

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