Interests and Leisure téma

Interests and Leisure téma

Some people use their free time to relax, but more and more people are doing volunteer work, especially for charities or political parties. A lot of free time is spent sitting passively at home where the most popular leisure activites are watching TV, reading the newspaper or a magazine, playing computer games, surfing the Net or just chatting with a neighbour over a cup of coffe. Our way of life has even changed the way we spend our free time, many adults now spend their Saturdays or Sundays shopping at the nearest supermarket while many city young people meet friends at large shopping centres just to have fun.

Free-time activities differ form season to season. In summer, gardening is popular between middle-aged and elderly people. Some grow fruits and vegetable. In winter many men often work on do-it-yourself projects around the house, like building shelves or remodelling the bathroom. Many young men and boys enjoy going to the local rink to play some hockey. One way for people to spend their leisure time during the long winter is attending the theatre, concerts, art exhibitions and the cinema. Spring is the time for „spring cleaning“, when many families washing windows, cleaning out cupboards and sorting trough old clothes.

Hiking, rock climbing and long walks in the woods looking for mushrooms are also favourite free time in good weather. Many people also use both spring and autum to repair, paint, redecorate and remodel their houses of flats. Some families especially that live in large cities, often have „a day out“ at the weekend when the weather is warm. There are many local festivals and fairs or amusement parks and zoos to go to. Many use their free weekends to go to their cottages or country-houses no matter what season it is.

Many families now have two or three TV sets so that whoever wants to watch TV can watch whatever they want. So while Dad is sitting in the living room watching Champion League Football, Mum is in the bedroom watching her daily Argentine soap opera and the children are in their room watching a video. This living separately can have a negative effect on family relationships because family members spend less time talking to each other.

Another leisure time activity is reading. Reading the paper or magazines is still a very popular free time. Lots of people spend hours reading their horoscope, checking the latest sports scores, reading about the latest scandal and doing crossword puzzles.

Some free-time activites involve animals. The most popular is having a dog or a cat. For people who live in a flat in a housing estate having a dog cane take up a lot of their free time, but they don´t seem to ming. They enjoy to take their pet for his daily walks several times a day.

Most people like socializing. They enjoy going out with friends for dinner or a drink after a hard day at work. Sometimes they invite friends to their place. Fitness classes can also be a good way to spend your free time, meet people and have fun with friends. For many young people having one regular night out a week is a normal part of their free time. Whil in Britaing a visit to a pub often includes playing a game, in Slovakia most pubs don´t have games, so people just sit, drink their beer, smoke and talk for hours.

For people who aren´t too tired after a long day at work there is one possibility: education. People need to have a variety of educational backgrounds. Thousand of people spend hundreds of hours every year learning foreign language, like English and German