PREPOSITIONS 1 My parents met during the war in August 1943, to be precise.

My father was on home leave from the front and he decided to spend the first week with his aunt who lived in Liverpool. He hadn't seen her for several years, even though she had brought him up since his mother's death. Liverpool isn't the most beautiful city in the world, but it can be very pleasant in summertime especially on that particular morning, however.

My father's train left Euston Station for Liverpool on time at midnight, but by the time it got to Crewe, it was already 3 and a half hours behind schedule. So he was out of temper and very tired on arrival at Line Street Station. That changed not only his mood but also his whole life. Feeling thirsty after this long journey, he decided to go and have a cup of tea at the station buffet. Typically, it was shut at that hour. A notice at(on) the door read "opening hours from 7 a.m. till 5.30 p.m." He looked up at the station clock :ten past seven. "The buffet should be open by now," he thought. But knowing station buffets he realized that he could wait till 8 or even 9 o'clock before it opened. Suddenly he noticed a pretty girl sitting on a bench. She was pouring some hot liquid from thermos flask into a cup. Being something of a lady's man, my father (at least this is what my mother told me some years later) said down and said, "I've never seen such a pretty girl in all my life as you, not even on Halloween Day or at Christmas. And I haven't had a hot drink since last night. If you give a drink of your hot tea, I'll marry and look after you for the rest of my life!" Believe it or not, she smiled at him, gave him the tee and , well, I wouldn't be here now if the buffet hadn't been shut on that fateful day in August 1943. Prepositions 2 I live in Sweden, but every summer I like to travel to Britain to visit my family and friends. I hate flying, so last summer I decided that for a change I would travel by bus. According to the brochure a I received from (at) the travel agency, the bus would leave Malmo at 9.30 on Friday evening and arrive in London the following Sunday at 7.30 in the morning. The journey would involve taking the boat from Trellerborg in the south of Sweden to Travemond in West Germany. Then we'd drive through Germany, Holland and Belgium before taking another boat from Ostend to Dover. It sounded wonderful at least in theory. In fact , the journey was a nightmare from beginning to end.

To begin with, I made a mistake on not reserving a berth between Trellerborg and Travemunde since it was quite impossible to sleep to the accompaniment of the combined singing of groups of drunk Germans and Swedes, each trying to outdoor the other in terms of volume and vulgarity. Again I had forgotten that you were not allowed to smoke on Swedish buses which made the journey between the stops

unbearable, so it was even longer than it was in reality. It also meant that when we did eventually have a break, I spent the whole time making up for the hours when I hadn't been able to smoke, with the result that I couldn't be bothered to waste valuable time in queuing up for a meal. By the time we reached London I was a physical and mental wreck! I hadn't slept or eaten properly for almost 36 hours and all I wanted to do was to sleep. So I booked into a really shoddy hotel next to Victoria Coach Station and slept soundly for 12 hours, at the same time vowing that never again would I make the journey from Sweden to Britain by bus , by ship, on foot or in any other way. Prepositions 3 Shirley wrote a letter to her friend, Linda, giving her instructions how to reach her house if she felt like coming to stay with her over (at , for) the weekend. Part of the letter is reproduced below. Look through it and fill in the missing prepositions. " When you get off the bus, start walking along the High Street towards the church. By the way, you'll pass a pub called "the King's Head" and a telephone kiosk on your way there. Just behind the telephone kiosk, on the left, there's a car park. Go by (past) the car park and continue along the footpath that goes to(through) Box Wood. Turn right at the side post and walk along the river bank until you come to a bridge. Don't go across the bridge but keep on walking until you reach a cottage called "Hillside". Behind the cottage there's a road that leads to a farm. Follow the road and turn left just before reaching the farm. At the end of this road there's a row of houses. I live in the middle house. It's number 7 and it has a lamp post in front of it. If I'm not in, go to (round) the back where you'll find a spare key to the front door at the back door under a flower pot. I hope you won't get lost. Look forward to seeing you again." Prepositions 4 Ken Rose is a company director and he has to sit at a desk all days. He likes to keep fit by running to work every morning. He arrives at the office early, gets off his shirt and vest, and puts on a business suit. Last week Ken got to his work earlier than usual dressed in red shorts and a red vest. He had just put on his shirt and tie when the phone rang. Ken picked up the receiver and sat his desk. A business colleague was calling. He said that half an hour late as he had some important matter to deal with and it couldn't be put off. Ken had just put the receiver down when someone knocked at(on) the door. The managing director entered the room with 6 important guests. "Ah, Ken," he said. "I want to introduce to you our visitors and I'd like you to show them round the company." "Of course, Sir." Ken said and got up shake hands with the visitors forgetting that he still had on only his shorts and shirt. Prepositions 5 It was a very happy funeral. Even the sun shone the late Henry Ground on that day. Lying in his coffin he was probably enjoying himself too. Once more and for the last time on this earth, he was the centre of attention. People laughed and told each

other jokes. Relatives who hadn't spoken for years being on bad terms smiled at each other and promised to stay in touch from now on. And, of course, everyone had a favourite story to tell about Henry. "Do you remember how he dressed up in gypsy costume and went from door to door telling people's fortune? He actually made 6 pounds that afternoon." "That reminds me of the time I had dinner with him at a restaurant. When the wine waiter brought the wine, he poured a drop into Henry's glass and waited for a superior expression on his face. So, Henry, instead of tasting it the way any normal person would do, dipped his thumb and forefinger into the wine in his glass. Then he put his hand up to hiss ear and rolled his pre-finger and thumb together as if he were listening to the quality of the wine. Then he nodded to the waiter solemnly as if to say "Yes, that's fine. You may serve it." You should have seen the look on the wine waiter's face! And how Henry managed to keep from laughing I'll never know." "Did you hear of that practical joke he played when he was a student at Oxford. Some workmen were digging a hole the road. First Henry went to the police and told them about some "students" who were digging the road up a joke. Then he approached the workmen and explained to them that some students had dressed up ass policemen and were coming to tell them to stop digging the hole! You can imagine what happened. "Yes, old Henry loved to play tricks on people. Once when he was invited to a modern art exhibition, he managed somehow to sneak into the gallery the day before and turn all the paintings upside down. The exhibition ran for four days before anyone noticed!" "It's hard to believe that Henry was a Ground, when you think of how different he was from his brothers." Yes, it was difficult to believe that he was a Ground. He was born in an important but well-to-do family in the Midlands on the 7th of August in 1913. He was the youngest of 5 sons. The four older boys were successful in life. They married beautiful girls from good families and produced children as handsome and clever as themselves. The eldest son became a clergyman, the 2nd was appointed headmaster of a famous public school, the 3rd went in for business and became disgustingly rich, the 4th followed his father's footsteps and became a solicitor. But the youngest son, Henry, unlike his brothers turned out to be a lazy good-for-nothing person. His usual afternoon consisted sitting under a shady tree with a pretty company at(by) his side, and all the time was devoted practically to learning the songs of the bees that buzzed over(above) his head. Some people whispered that his real father wasn't the respectable Mr.Ground at all, but a wild gypsy who had come one day the house and had swept Mrs.Ground off her feet by his dancing black eyes and hiss wicked country ways. Prepositions 6 During (on) a camping holiday in Spain, grandmother, who had been brought along with the rest of the family, died suddenly at night of natural causes. Not wanting to bury her in a foreign country, where they might never be able to visit her grave

again, the family decided to head (for) home and attempt to smuggle her through Spain and France, and so back to England. With this mind they rolled grandmother's body into a carpet, tied it on to the roof rack of the car together with the camping equipment and started on their way (back to) England. They drove all night and just before breakfast they heaved a sigh of relief as they crossed the border out of Spain and into France. The first obstacle was behind them. However by this time all the family were very tired and hungry. As a stop for breakfast sounded like a good idea, they parked the car in a side street behind a suitable cafe. Not wanting to leave the corpse for too long and also wishing to continue their journey as soon as possible, they ate a quick breakfast and returned to the car. However, to their horror, their possessions had never been stolen from the roof of the car, including the carpet and the grandmother's corpse. The strange thing is that the body never did turn up.