英语博客(A cup of English):095 A refreshing park.

　　Beginners.

Grab your swimming trunks or your swimming suit and head to the nearest park to cool off this summer. Just up the road from here, a new park, paid for by Rotary 1, has been set up for the locals. It is in a residential 2 area where there are lots of young families, so it is a perfect spot for kids to run around, play, and get rid of excess energy. The place is actually supposed to be a frisbee 3 park. There is a large, oval, open area, similar to a valley, where people of all ages come and play with frisbees. Often dogs are there. Some of them are real acrobats 5. They jump expertly for the frisbee and return it to their owner. There is also a long cycling path all around the frisbee area. But the main attraction of this park is the huge water sprayers, a water cannon 6, and giant water flowers. When the temperature gets up into the nineties the children come out like bees, swarming 8 all over. There are lots of squeals 9 and screams, running around, laughing, and occasionally crying. In general, everyone has a great time getting wet. The parents usually avoid the water, and just sit and watch the goings on. However, every now and then, a giggling 10 child will throw a wet piece of clothing at a mum or dad, just to make them share the experience.

Grammar notes.

Useful vocabulary: to grab, residential, acrobat 4, to swarm 7.

Exs:

Quickly, grab the child before he runs out into the road.

This area of town used to be residential, but now it is commercial; there are offices everywhere.

He climbs the tree just like an acrobat; he can jump, bend, swing, and, flip 11.

The bees were swarming over the field. It was a scary sight.

Advanced.

By the time we had arrived at the park, it was already full of people. I went there to meet up with my friend, Mijung, and her two boys. Two of my boys took bicycles, one took a ripstick, and my girl took her tricycle. For those of you who don't know what ripsticks are, they are similar to a skate board, but the two ends swivle in opposite directions, and that action drives the ripstick along. It's good exercise, very cool, and perfect for the frisbee park. They went around and around the park, heads down, helmets on, with look of concentration on their faces. But after a while they got hot. It was in the upper nineties, after all. So we headed over to the water area for them to cool off. Mijung and I didn't fancy getting wet, so we stayed in the shaded seating area, watching the children. After about a half hour, we heard some pleasant music. It was coming from an icecream truck. "Hey mum, can we have one please, please!" It had parked at the side of the park, and a line of children was forming to buy a cold treat. The little truck was actually painted like a cow, which was a cute idea. They brought their icecreams to the seating area and chatted with us until they finished eating. Then it was off to the playground area to climb and slide. They had cooled off enough, so they didn't need to go back in the water. It'll get hotter and hotter this summer, so there will be plenty of opportunies to come back and cool off.