My home is my castle

How would you like to live in a castle, a tree house or even underground? This might not be as unusual as you think. It seems that these days more and more people want to live somewhere special and out of the ordinary, and if they can’t buy what they want they are quite prepared to build it from scratch.

For John Mew and his wife Josephine, their home really is their castle. They have built their own English castle in the Sussex countryside. The building is brand new with all the luxuries you would expect from a house that cost more than $350,000 to build. However, when you first see it from the outside it would be easy to think that you are looking at an ancient monument. The building has a lot of the features of a traditional castle, including a keep, a moat and a drawbridge. “My choice of house is somewhat eccentric and building it was very hard work, but we’ve got the perfect place to live,” Mew says. Although some would say that the building is impractical and may be cold in harsh British winters, he certainly has got a unique and spacious home.

If you don’t look carefully, you might not even see the home that Jonathan and Shanon Ridd built at all! That’s because the house is a converted underground water tank. The only thing that can be seen from the surface is a door leading into the hillside. “We’ve never wanted to live in an ordinary house,” Shanon says. “Living below ground means that our home is quiet and very cosy – none of the usual draughts. It doesn’t damage the local surroundings and has very low fuel bills. Some of our friends find it dark and feel shut in when they first visit, but they soon get used to it!”

a castle -замок

underground –под землей

from scratch –с нуля

luxury -роскошь

ancient –древний, старинный

a feature -черта

a keep –главная башня

a moat -ров

a drawbridge –подъемный, разводной мост

harsh- суровый

spacious -просторный

draught -сквозняк

fuel bill –счет за отопление, электроэнергию

shut in –зд. в заточении

2. Find the English equivalents in the text:

необычный, быть вполне готовым, ожидать (предполагать), легко подумать, традиционный, выбор, суровая зима, уникальный дом, совсем, бак для воды, единственный, удобный, привыкнуть.

3. Choose the most suitable answer:

1. More and more people build their own home

a) so that they can live underground

b) so that they can have exactly the home they want

c) because it is cheaper than buying a new house

d) because they want all the modern luxuries you find in a new home

2. John and Josephine Mew

a) know that their choice of home is unusual

b) found that creating their dream home was easy

c) wanted to live like people in traditional castles

d) converted an ancient building into a modern house

3. What do Jonathan and Shanon Ridd say about their house

a) it’s just an ordinary house

b) they always wanted to live underground

c) it doesn’t harm the environment

d) they don’t pay anything for heating and lighting

4. Find the opposites in the text to the following words:

usual, ordinary, inside, practical.