[Tdol]

OK- sorry for the delay, but my computer died and then I was away in Kyoto for a couple of days, but I did say I would get back to it.

I’m going to speak about leisure activities and I’m going to try to compare British and Czech lifestyles a little.
Well, first of all I’ll try to explain why we need to have some free time and rest.
Secondly I am going to talk about people’s lifestyles and hobbies: I will tell you about various hobbies and pastimes.
At the end I am going to talk about several hobbies and about how they may influence our lives and what people do the most and what they do at the weekends.

So, to start with an explanation what actually hobbies mean for us, I suppose everyone all round the world fills his or her spare time with his or her hobbies. If people didn’t have any hobbies, they would probably go mad as everyone needs some relaxation and rest. To tell the truth, I can’t imagine my life without any of the acivities that I like. It is clear people mustn’t only work and sleep. In my opinion, we live our lives to feel happy. How can we reach happiness? From my point of view, happiness is everything that makes us happy: looking forward to something, doing what we want (going out, spending time with friends etc.) – just something that we enjoy and like- or achieving an objective. You don’t have to be rich to feel happy; the main thing is that you should be satisfied with your life.
For example many people in poor countries are much happier than those living in a rush, still hurrying. (This is a bit unclear because you haven't contrasted poor countries with wealthier ones)
But it all depends on what we like. We can always change our lives – that’s is a piece of the bright side of life, although it is sometimes difficult to change it suddenly. But that is also what makes us happy if we see at least some progress – trying to reach our objective.

In my opinion, leisure activities and lifestyles in the UK and the Czech Republic are slowly going to be same. However, it is just my opinion – I haven’t lived in the UK, so I can’t say exactly what people in this country do or don’t like.

I think we can difference two sorts of people. First, those who like to live in a city, still doing something, almost without rest. The other type of people are those, who like to live quielty and calmly. These people don’t need much for their lives.
The first group of people prefers living in a city to living out of the city, the others like to live in the countryside. The first ones believe in modern medicine, the others are slowly going to live very naturally (when they’re ill, the drink herb teas, trust the nature more than the science.
My attitude to this is following: I believe natural cure is much better, but only if it helps. If it doesn’t help us, there is no other chance than to stretch out for some tablets and pills. Moreover, there are many doctors specialized in homeopathy nowadays, who will always try to prescribe you natural cure than chemical tablets.
And of course, there is a mixed group of people who for example like to live in a city because of the culture (in a town they can go to concerts, theatres, galleries and so on), but also prefer herbs to chemically produced tablets. (is medicine a hobby? This seems a bit off-topic)

There are many kinds of leisure activities. The most wide-spread nowadays are probably sports; the other kinds of hobbies are cultural and artistic (going to the cinema, galleries, concerts, reading books, newspapers, magazines, painting, drawing, playing a musical instrument, singing, dancing…), intellectual (playing social games: cards, chess, draughts; solving puzzles), housework (sewing, crocheting, embroidering, knitting; we can also mention gardening, cooking, baking, tinkering and perhaps fishing), collecting various things such as stamps, chewing gum wrappers or beer bottle labels and caps.
Sports can be divided to two groups/types: team sports (football (soccer), volleyball, baseball) and individual sporting (skiing, running, hiking, swimming, rafting and many others).

Some hobbies tend to be a men’s affair while others attract mostly women. Children, too, have their hobbies. When we are young we have lots of time to do what we enjoy.
An example of a popular women's pastime is sewing. I suppose no one can imagine a man sewing or crocheting. It would look really funny. However, not many women are devoted to housework. Young people don’t usually have patience for this. They don’t mostly even know how to do it as nobody taught them. Middle-aged women don’t usually have any time for this. I don’t know the situation in the UK, but in the CZ women have to manage everything: working about 10 or more hours at work, cooking, looking after children, washing… - and if they should have also sew or knit, they would soon go to a madhouse, altough they might consider it as a hobby. They would rather buy a T-shirt than sew it by themselves. Only old retired women have some time for such work.
A typical men’s hobby is fishing. Men also like to tinker about in their home workshops.
And what about the children's hobbies? Speaking personally, small children are devoted to collecting anything- starting with stamps and ending with dolls or pencils.

What do people do the most in their free time? Most people dosport. Sport is being developed more and more these times. People know it is healthy to practise a sport. In addition, many people try to lose on weight, because it is “in fashion“. Sporting can help them to reduce their weight.
Many people are influenced by this stupid lifestyle. Almost every girl wants to be even slimmer than she is and that’s why they diet themselves. I believe people should eat healthy, but in my opinion, there is nothing bad in eating a whole chocolate after 8 pm. (Is this relevant to hobbies?)

Statistics say that British, mainly young people, don’t participate in sports activities very much - people in the UK spend 15 minutes a day doing sport on average. I don’t know how much minutes Czech people spend, but I guess the same time, perhaps a little more. I myself don’t practise any sports regularly – I just like cycling, swimming, dancing, skiing…and that’s probably all.

While about 50 years ago, hiking was developed a lot, many people prefer cycling to hiking now. I don’t know if people like it also in the UK, but in my country, it is very popular.
We can see much more ecological advertisements on TV, in newapapers then in the past. People try to sort the trash (for paper, plastic, glass…) to protect nature. When you go hiking for example to a forest, you can see tables where protected animals and plants are drawn on your way to the destination (normally on a mountain with a view of the landscape); these tables tell tourists how to behave in the nature.

But many people rather sit on their sofa in front of the TV screen (couch potatoes). Instead of playing football, they watch their favourite football on TV.

In the UK, women love to go shopping to the supermarkets and department stores at the weekends. They often go also with whole family and spend all the day (ussually Saturdays) instead of going to the countryside or visiting their relatives. This fashion for shopping and having designer clothes shows us, that the society is going more and more consumerist. And it is the same in the Czech Republic.

Young people love meeting their friends and that is why they often go to pubs, cafés, bars or night clubs.