Mу hobby is collecting stamps. When I was still a baby, my mother began collecting for me.
Of course she didn’t let me touch the stamps until I was old enough. I remember that it was on my fifteenth birthday that she first put them into my hands. They were in five albums, but since then I have added three more, so that now I have a bigger collection than any of my friends.
How do I get my stamps? I have never bought a single one from a shop. My father, who works in a big office, sometimes brings me stamps from different parts of the world. And I have friends both here and in other countries who send me stamps in return for the ones I send to them.
Now that I am finishing school (I am in the 11th form), I don’t have as much time as before to spend on my stamps. But in the evening what can be better than to sit down at a table with my albums arranging the new stamps in them, writing in the names of the countries, or, if I am too tired, only looking through the stamps already in the albums.
Each stamp has a story to tell of distant countries and strange people. I see pictures of men and women, birds and animals that I myself have never seen. Kings and presidents pass before my eyes, and I can follow the history of whole nations. But my stamp collection doesn’t only make me think of the past. Just as my mother collected for me, so I, too, am collecting for my younger brother. What better way will there be of making him interested in history, geography and languages and of making these subjects live for him? If I can pass my hobby on to him, he will be grateful to me for it, as I am grateful to my mother.
Vocabulary
touch — дотрагиваться
to arrange — раскладывать, приводить в порядок
distant — дальний
making these subjects live for him — сделать эти предметы живыми для него
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