A Beautiful Memory padding-bottom: 75%;">Er the loveliest house that I’ve ever lived in was one that I lived in with my grandparents when I was a child. And the name of the house was Crosslands. And I have some very happy memories of Crosslands.It was, it seemed so huge to me as a child. And it had a lovely living room with a piano in it and a lovely sort of hall with lots of carpets and chests and antiques and so on. And there was a mysterious room, it was the drawing room, and we only used it on Sundays, or when the vicar came for tea, or Christmas Day or Easter Day, and I was － used to be amazed about this room because it had the best furniture in it but it was covered up with sheets － it was as if all the furniture was wearing clothes － and it seemed to me ridiculous that we couldn’t en- joy this beautiful furniture all the week through really.And probably my favorite room was the kitchen. It had a lovely red flagstone floor, which was always highly polished, and an Aga, you know one of those big cookers that heats the whole room so it was always warm there, and there was a kind of clothes-horse above it that we used to hang all our clothes on, and it was just － it was lovely. It was a very warm room with baked bread and － my grandmother used to make ice cream and we’d eat it in there and there was a vegetable garden leading from there so I spent a lot of time in the vegetable garden picking peas and eating them － my grandmother used to get really cross with me because I used to pick all the vegetables and the fruit for our meals and then I’d eat half of them, because they tasted so delicious coming fresh from the garden. Now, I went back to it a few years ago and it was a big mistake. They’ve modernized it inside, they’ve got rid of those lovely old fire- places have just gone. And they’ve knocked a wall down so the drawing room and the living room have become one big modern plastic kind of room.But I think what upset me most about it was the feeling that the house had shrunk, it had become smaller and that my memory of this lovely large warm comfortable house had turned into an old house with modernized rooms inside it. And it taught me a lesson really, that you can’t go back on the past and recapture it. But there’s a beautiful memory there. 呃……我住過的最可愛的房子，就是小時侯和爺爺奶奶一起住的房屋了。房子的名字叫“十字地帶”，它留給我一些令人非常愉快的回憶。房子，在兒時的我眼裏，感覺真是好大啊！可愛的起居室裏擺放着一架鋼琴，漂亮的大廳裏有各種各樣的地毯、櫃子、古董等東西。還有一間很神祕的房間，就是會客廳，我們只在週日，以及牧師來喝茶、聖誕節或者復活節的時候才用它。裏面有最好傢俱，卻總是覆蓋着東西―― 就好像所有的傢俱都穿上了外衣，因此，那時候我一直對這間房子很好奇。不過，令我感到荒謬的是，這麼漂亮的傢俱我們卻一個星期都不能連續享用。我最喜歡的房間，也許就是廚房了吧。令人愉快的紅色石質地板，總是被擦得亮亮的。房間裏有一個大壁爐，把整個屋子烤得暖暖和和的，壁爐上面掛着一個衣架，我們的衣服都掛在衣架上，真的是很合適，也很漂亮。烤着香香的麪包，房間裏真是好溫暖啊。奶奶還常做冰淇淋，我們就在這個房間裏吃……從廚房能夠通往菜園，我常在園子裏摘豌豆吃。我會把菜園裏的蔬菜和水果摘個精光，做好飯後我幾乎能吃掉一半，奶奶有時就真的生氣了。主要是因爲從菜園裏摘的蔬菜太好吃了。幾年後，我回到這裏--這真是一個很大的錯誤--房子裏面裝修得很現代化了，那些漂亮的壁爐也拆掉了……都已經不存在了。他們把會客廳和起居室之間的牆拆掉，改爲一大間很現代的可塑型的房間。然而，我認爲最讓我不舒服的是感覺房子好像變小了。它越來越小，我記憶中的那個既漂亮溫暖又舒服的大房子變成了一套房間裝修得很現代化的老房子。我得出了一個教訓，那就是你不能回到過去，更不能重新擁有它，但是，關於老房子的回憶還是一樣的美好。
