Seven entries are selected from Mr. Walton’s diary. They tell us about the four seasons in England and what village people probably used to do during these seasons, some 30 or 40 years ago

March 17: It rained heavily all morning. The rain stopped about two o’clock and I went out for a walk. There was a cold wind blowing, so I put on my heaviest and warmest coat. As I was walking along the High Streetthe wind blew my hat off. I ran after it. The wind carried it into the road and I ran outto get it. I was almost knocked down by a car. I have just listened to the nine o’clock news. It will freeze hard in most parts of the country, they say.

April 20: We’re having spring weather now. The sun shone for several hours during the early part of the day. Now the sky is cloudy and it looks like rain. The rain will help things to grow. The gardens are full of spring flowers and all the people in the village are busy sowing seeds. The man next door has been busy cutting the grass in his garden. I shall have to start cutting the grass in my garden soon. It’s hard work, but it has to be done.

June 14: I think June is one of the best months in the year. The temperature was almost eightythis afternoon. The children enjoy the warm weather. I saw seven or eight of them in the river after school. Most of them were good swimmers. One small girl was learning. Her elder sister was teaching her. I used to swim in this river when I was a boy. Now I find the water too cold even on a day like this. I can’t remember when I last went swimming. Probably it was during that enjoyable holiday we had ten years ago on one of the Greek islands.

August 5: This is my wife’s birthday. She’s fifty-seven. We asked a few old friends in to dinner:the doctor, the clergyman, the headmaster of the village school, and their wives. Like most elderly people, I suppose, we spent most of the evening talking about old times. This was a quiet little village thirty years ago. Now, every Sunday hundreds of cars and coaches pass through the High Street at what I think is a very dangerous speed. They make the village almost as noisy as the streets of a large town. When I was a boy I used to enjoy riding on the backs of the big farm horses. Today there are very few horses working on the farms. The farm workers today drive tractors, not horses, and a man is not much use on the farm unless he knows all about machines. When I was a boy we had no electricity in the village. Now every house in the village has a radio set and a television set. Is it a good thing for children to sit in front of a television set all evening? It’s probably bad for their eyes. They ought to be outdoors walking or playing. When my young friends ask me why I haven’t bought a television set, I tell them there are thousands of good books I still want to read. I can’t find time for both reading and television.

October 11: It’s beginning to get quite cold. We’re glad to have fires and have been burning wood for the last few weeks. Those old apple trees that were cut down last winter will give us wood for the fires most of this winter. Our neighbours have electric fires.They don’t like fires that burn wood or coal: too much smoke and dirt, they say. I like to see a wood fire in the living-room and I like an electric fire in the bedroom.

December 18: Only a week to Christmas now. We’re looking forward to having the children with usfor the holidays, and the three grandchildren. We ought to go to town and buy presents for them. London will be full of people, I suppose, and there will be so many things in the shops that it will be difficult to know what to buy. If we have an early breakfast tomorrow we can catch the half-past-eight train and be in London by ten. We can do our shopping before lunch and go to a theatre in the afternoon. I don’t think we’ve been to a theatre for three or four years.

January 5: It has been snowing for three days and nights now. In places the snow is already three feet deep. The postman was an hour late this morning. The trains are all late, and there are very few cars and vans on the road. If it freezes, the roads will be very dangerous. There’s nothing worse than frozen snow. The birds don’t like this sort of weather. They can’t find food. We’ve put out a lot of bread for them.

    The worst winter I remember was the winter we came to live here. The snow was so deep that for several days we were cut off from the rest of the country. We had no letters and no newspapers. I hope it isn’t going to be as bad again this January!

From Oxford Progressive English Course,

Oxford University Press, 1969.

Approximately 860 words.

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[1] The High Street:the main treet of the village
[2] I ran out :I ran from the sidewalk into the centre of the road.
[3] Eighty:80⁰Fahrenheit
[4] We asked a few old friends in to dinner:We asked a few old friends to come to our house for dinner.
[5] at what I think is a very dangerous speed:at a speed that I think is very dangerous
[6] a man is not much use:a man is almost useless
[7] electric fires:electric heaters
[8] We are looking forward to having the children with us :We are expecting the children to stay with us for the holidays.
[9] We were cut off from the rest of the country : we lost touch with the other parts of the country.
[10] To be bad again:to be as bad as that again.