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Episode: Christmas Stories: Ice skating and car disasters

Author: BBC Radio
Duration: 00:09:08

Episode Shownotes

Beth and Neil share real stories about Christmas.TRANSCRIPT Find a full transcript for this episode and more programmes to help you with your English at: ``https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish`/english/features/christmas-stories/241220` FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters LIKE PODCASTS? Try some

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Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_00
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

00:00:03 Speaker_03
Hello and welcome to the Learning English Stories podcast. This festive season we're sharing some of our own stories from this time of year. So, get cosy by the fire, grab a mug of hot chocolate and get ready for some wintry tales.

00:00:21 Speaker_03
Hello, I'm Pippa and welcome to Christmas Stories. In this series, we tell real stories about Christmas, New Year and the festive season. Today, our stories come from Beth. Hello. And Neil.

00:00:36 Speaker_00
Hi.

00:00:37 Speaker_03
So, Beth and Neil, can you tell us about your story in three words?

00:00:44 Speaker_01
Ouch. Skating. Embarrassing.

00:00:51 Speaker_00
wrong tool and failure.

00:00:56 Speaker_03
OK, I'm intrigued. Let's start with you, Beth. Can you tell us your Christmas story, please?

00:01:03 Speaker_01
OK, so my best friend and I went ice skating. We decided that we were going to have a Christmas tradition and we thought, yeah, why not make it ice skating? So we were really bad at the beginning. We were like clinging onto the sides, feeling quite

00:01:22 Speaker_01
nervous but then towards the end we were getting quite good and in fact I thought yeah I'm really good I can go fast bit of showing off and my friend decided to get her phone out to film how great we were doing ice skating

00:01:39 Speaker_01
So yeah, I was going quite fast, I thought I looked really cool. And then I looked at the camera and I tripped and I smashed both of my knees onto the ice. So first aid people came over, I was put in a wheelchair, taken off the ice.

00:01:58 Speaker_01
And I had to go to A&E and everyone was asking me what happened, but my friend had been recording me. So she was telling everyone, I have the video. Do you want to see? And everybody really wanted to watch and they all found it quite funny.

00:02:13 Speaker_01
So I was in pain. They were looking at my legs and they thought that I had broken both of my knees. but they were all quite enjoying this video.

00:02:24 Speaker_01
Anyway, got to A&E, and all of the people in the waiting room were shown this video by my friend of me falling over on the ice.

00:02:34 Speaker_01
I went in to get an x-ray, and when I came out of the x-ray, I saw the nurses, and they were gathered around my friend, laughing, watching this video of me falling over. And in the end, it was okay. I didn't break my knees.

00:02:49 Speaker_01
I was on crutches for about two or three weeks, including over Christmas. So ice skating has definitely not become our tradition.

00:03:07 Speaker_03
Oh no, this is a really sad story. Can you laugh at the video now? Do you find it funny?

00:03:13 Speaker_01
I can, but I also don't find it that funny that everyone was laughing at this video of me because I really hurt myself, but it is quite funny.

00:03:23 Speaker_01
And when my friend talks about it, she still laughs a lot because she still finds the whole thing quite funny.

00:03:28 Speaker_00
Can we get this video on our website, please?

00:03:31 Speaker_01
Yes, I definitely I have a copy of it and I'll show you all and maybe we can get it on the website.

00:03:39 Speaker_03
OK, I enjoyed your story, Beth. Thank you very much, Neil. I think it's time to hear your Christmas story, please.

00:03:46 Speaker_00
Yes. OK. Are you ready? It was just a few days before Christmas. I had just one day of work left and I was planning to go to spend Christmas with my parents in the west of England.

00:04:01 Speaker_00
But unfortunately that morning, I discovered that the battery in my car had gone flat. It stopped working. So I just bought all of my Christmas presents for everyone in the family. And so I didn't really have any money.

00:04:15 Speaker_00
And so I didn't want to spend money on a replacement battery. I told one of my colleagues what had happened. And she said to me, oh, that's OK. You don't need to buy a new battery. I've got a charger, a battery charger for a car.

00:04:31 Speaker_00
And I will bring that in. You can borrow it. And I thought, fantastic. So she brought in this big piece of electrical equipment in a plastic bag and handed it over. And I bought her a drink to say thank you after work. And I went home.

00:04:45 Speaker_00
And I put the bag down by the front door. and I didn't look at it or anything and I just started packing my bags for my trip on Christmas Eve the next day. And I didn't really get up early or I wasn't in a rush at all.

00:05:01 Speaker_00
In fact, I was quite relaxed and later on I regretted that very much. So after my nice sort of leisurely breakfast, I thought, I better start charging this battery so that the car works for me to drive down that afternoon.

00:05:16 Speaker_00
So I picked up the bag with the charger in it, I went outside, I opened up the car bonnet, and then I took out the charger from the bag. And it didn't really look like any kind of charger for a battery that I'd ever seen before.

00:05:33 Speaker_00
In fact, it looked really like a power saw. And as I looked at it more and more closely, I realized that that's because it was not a battery charger. It was, in fact, a power saw.

00:05:45 Speaker_00
But in that moment, I could see that my Christmas was going to be a complete disaster because I wouldn't be able to drive down to visit my parents. And so I had a little bit of hope that this power saw would work as a battery charger.

00:05:58 Speaker_00
And I even sort of held it against the battery to see if it would work. Obviously it didn't. I didn't have the right kind of insurance for somebody to come and fix my car at my house and things were closing because it was Christmas Eve.

00:06:15 Speaker_00
So my only chance was to go and buy a battery from a shop and there was a shop. quite far away. I kind of ran down there to get to the shop on time, which I did. And then I realized that car batteries are very, very heavy. And I waited ages for a bus.

00:06:31 Speaker_00
And then I couldn't get on the bus because it was so full. So I had to walk home carrying this enormous, really heavy battery, sweating. And then I got back and I opened the car bonnet again.

00:06:42 Speaker_00
I realized at that stage that I had absolutely no idea how to change a car battery. And that also the one that was in the car at that time was so old and rusted that it kind of needed to be forcibly removed.

00:07:01 Speaker_00
I kind of worked it out, but it was very unstable. And I was convinced that all the way on this journey that my car was about to explode at any moment. But I did get there. I did get to my parents' house late on Christmas Eve.

00:07:15 Speaker_00
And when I got in, I sent a lovely text message to my friend saying, thanks for the battery charger. You saved my Christmas.

00:07:31 Speaker_03
Did you ever tell her that she'd given you a power saw and not a charger? Did it ever come out that she'd ruined your Christmas and not saved it?

00:07:42 Speaker_00
I did eventually, yes. And she thought it was very funny. And I thought it was very funny soon afterwards. But at the time, I thought this was the most ridiculous thing.

00:07:54 Speaker_01
But it seems completely crazy that you actually kind of managed to fit it and you drove the car without it breaking down. Did you then have to take it to the garage to get it fitted properly or was it just okay?

00:08:07 Speaker_00
Interestingly, I sold that car to a colleague and they took it for a service and they said, who put this battery in?

00:08:25 Speaker_03
Well, Neil, I'm glad you made it to your parents' house. It's kind of a couple of Christmas disaster stories there really, so I hope that those listening don't have any Christmas disasters this year.

00:08:38 Speaker_03
That's it for this episode, but next week we'll be hearing two more Christmas stories. Find all our stories and dramas on our website bbclearningenglish.com. Bye for now. Bye.

00:08:49 Speaker_00
Bye.

00:08:52 Speaker_02
Thanks for listening to Learning English Stories. Did you know we have a BBC Learning English email newsletter? Subscribe for our latest lessons, worksheets and quizzes and weekly tips to help you study.

00:09:06 Speaker_02
Just search BBC Learning English newsletter or follow the link in the notes for this programme.

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00:09:31 Speaker_05
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00:09:38 Speaker_06
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00:09:51 Speaker_05
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00:09:56 Speaker_04
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00:10:02 Speaker_06
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00:10:22 Speaker_05
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00:10:36 Speaker_05
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00:10:50 Speaker_05
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00:11:12 Speaker_05
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00:11:23 Speaker_06
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