Leisure activities / Esteban Martín Álvarez

What do you do in your free time? Why?

Sometimes, people have a lot of free time because they have nothing to do. They haven’t got exams or they have already finished their work, so they get bored. When this happens to me, I feel like doing some activities I enjoy, such as cooking, playing the bagpipes or riding my bike. I’m going to tell you about some of my hobbies in my free time and maybe you like these activities too. If this happens, you can do them with me. I wait you!

Cooking

This is one of my favourite hobbies and I practise it on Fridays and at the weekend. I like cooking Italian food, like fresh pasta and pizzas, but I also make other not so good and delicious recipes (once I made a lot of disgusting mushrooms croquettes which looked like a pile of concrete with crunchy rocks). Some Saturdays I make chocolate for breakfast, and it takes me half an hour or more, if I want that it tastes soft and thick. Some Fridays and Saturdays I make fresh pasta with Bolognese sauce.



Making the dough takes me an hour, and I have to use flour, three or four eggs (depending on the people who are going to eat at home), olive oil and salt.

After making the dough I have to flatten, cut it with a special machine and boil it. This takes me half an hour.

But I also have to make the sauce. This is the longest task, and it lasts about three hours. I use onion, natural tomato sauce, red pepper, carrots, white wine, a little salt and a small piece of Parmigiano-Regiano cheese. After eating it all, there are two activities I like, which are suitable to help digestion.

Swimming and cycling

When the weather is hot I like swimming in the sports centre. I usually go there when I haven’t got much homework, and it’s a relaxing activity, because the water is warm. But if you go while the children are in their swimming class, swimming turns into an impossible and stressful activity.

With cycling there isn’t this problem because the cycle lane is wide and it’s about 25 km long. I have cycled it many times. I go from O Couto, where I live, to Outariz, and then, from Outariz to Untes. From Untes, I go to Velle, passing Outariz and A Chavasqueira. I finish the cycle track passing A Lonia, and I come back home.

Sometimes while I am cycling along the cycle track, I throw some bangers and fireworks. I have got a lot of them. These are some of them:

Playing music

I also play the bagpipes in the Bagpipes School. I go there on Wednesdays, Fridays and some Mondays or Thursdays. I play the bagpipes at home with my own bagpipes. My bagpipes are green, because my aunt is a craftswoman and she wove a special cover for them. These are my bagpipes.

Sometimes in the year I go with the Real Junior Band to bagpipes championships. If you click on this link, you can see the band playing in Viana do Castelo (Portugal).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8JY772qRwQ

We are on first level and we play the bagpipes, the drums and other musical instruments. I started playing the bagpipes six years ago, because I had listened to bagpipes music and I loved it. I hope to be able to go on playing the bagpipes for a lot of years. I also hope to travel to new different places and show other people Galician music.

Now you know some of the activities I do in my free time. As you can see, I try to use my free time properly and I never get bored. I hope you have enjoyed reading it.

You can see me playing the bagpipe in the following video:

by Esteban Martín Álvarez, 4º B ESO

All photos taken by Esteban Martín Álvarez.