A Slow Morning with Coffee — Calm English Listening

Transcript

Introduction

A: Hello, and welcome to Recursio Calm English Listening.

A: This is slow, calm English at B1 level. Most of our sessions are for the evening. This one is for the morning.

A: You don’t have to take notes or repeat anything out loud. Listening carefully is enough for today.

A: Today’s session is called “A Slow Morning with Coffee.”

A: You’ll hear two quiet stories about the first hour of the day, then we’ll review the phrases and practice them gently.

A: Listen for phrases like: to wake up slowly, the first light, to make coffee.

A: And: to take your time, a quiet street, and no plans until noon.

A: One gentle note. You don’t need to remember every word today. This is a quiet way to spend some time with English.

A: You can come back to the phrases later, when you’re ready to practice them.

A: If you’d like to practice these phrases, you’ll find them in Recursio — the link is in the description.

A: For now, settle in wherever you are. There’s nothing to do yet.

The first hour

A: It’s Saturday, the end of August. Ten past six in the morning.

A: Klara is awake, but she hasn’t moved.

A: There’s no alarm today. She woke up on her own, the way you do when your body already knows the time.

A: For a minute she thinks about all the things she could do with a whole free day.

A: Then she decides not to think about any of them yet.

A: She wakes up slowly. She stretches one arm, then the other, and lets her eyes adjust to the light.

A: The room is gray and soft. The curtains are thin, and behind them there’s the first light.

A: Outside, the city is not awake either. One car. A bird that has clearly been up for hours.

A: Klara lies there and listens to nothing much happening.

A: On a normal working day, she would already be checking her phone.

A: Today her phone is in the kitchen, face down, where she left it on purpose.

A: At half past six she gets up, and the floor is cold, and she doesn’t mind.

A: In the kitchen she does the one thing she has been looking forward to since Thursday.

A: She makes coffee in the slow way she likes.

A: She fills the kettle. She takes the beans out of the cabinet and grinds them by hand.

A: It’s a slow, loud, silly way to make coffee, and she loves it.

A: The kitchen fills with the smell of coffee. It’s better than the coffee, honestly.

A: Klara stands with her hands on the warm cup and doesn’t go anywhere.

A: The first light is coming over the roof of the building opposite now.

A: It’s orange, and then it’s yellow, and then it’s just morning.

A: She opens the window. The morning air comes in — cool, and clean, and smelling faintly of the bakery two streets away.

A: She takes the cup out to the small balcony and sits outside.

A: The chair has an old cushion on it, flat from too many summers.

A: Down in the quiet street, a man walks past with a newspaper under his arm.

A: A woman is watering plants on a balcony across the road. They nod at each other, the way neighbors do.

A: Klara drinks her coffee slowly, in small sips, because it’s still too hot.

A: She has no plans until noon. Not one.

A: At noon she’s meeting a friend for lunch, and until then, the morning is simply hers.

A: She thinks about the week. Not in a heavy way — just remembering it, the way you look at photographs.

A: Two long meetings. A difficult email that turned out fine. A colleague who made her laugh on Wednesday.

A: And then she stops thinking about the week, because the sun has reached her feet.

A: Later — much later than on a working day — she goes back inside and makes toast.

A: She eats it standing up at the counter, looking at nothing.

A: She reads three pages of a book. She waters one plant. She sits back down outside.

A: These are all ordinary things, and she has time for each of them.

A: At some point she notices she has been looking at the same rooftop for several minutes.

A: There’s a chimney, a satellite dish, and a small tree that somebody is growing up there in a pot.

A: She wonders who carries the water up. Whether they do it every day, or only remember in July.

A: It’s a very small mystery, and she is happy not to solve it.

A: She has lived in this apartment for four years and has never once looked at that roof properly.

A: On a working day you don’t see roofs. You see the time, and the door, and the street you have to cross.

A: The woman across the road finishes with her plants and goes back inside.

A: A cat walks along the wall. It has never been late for anything in its life.

A: At about nine, the street starts to fill up. A shop opens. Somebody’s radio starts.

A: The morning stops being quiet, and Klara doesn’t mind that either.

A: She takes her time getting dressed. She’s not late. There’s nothing to be late for.

A: She washes the cup. She finds her keys, which are exactly where they always are, and she is mildly surprised by that.

A: Her shoes take a while. Her bag takes longer.

A: This is how she eases into the day now — one small thing, and then another, and none of them urgent.

A: When she finally leaves the apartment at half past eleven, she has done almost nothing all morning.

A: And she feels better than she has felt all week.

Phrase review

A: Now let’s go through the phrases from the story, gently, one by one.

A: The first one: to wake up slowly.

A: It means you don’t jump out of bed. You come back to the day in your own time.

A: “On Sundays I like to wake up slowly.” “Let her wake up slowly — there’s no hurry.”

A: The next one: the first light.

A: The very early light, just as the sun comes up.

A: “The first light appeared behind the hills.” “There was a line of first light behind the curtains.”

A: The next one: to make coffee.

A: To prepare it — with a machine, a pot, or by hand.

A: “I’ll make coffee.” “Who made the coffee this morning?”

A: The next one: the smell of coffee.

A: It’s the familiar smell that fills the kitchen while coffee is being made.

A: “I woke up to the smell of coffee.” “The whole house smelled of coffee.”

A: The next one: the morning air.

A: The air outside early in the day. It may feel cooler or fresher than it does later.

A: “Open the window and let the morning air in.” “I like the morning air in summer.”

A: The next one: a quiet street.

A: A street with very little traffic or noise.

A: “They live on a quiet street.” “It’s a quiet street before eight.”

A: The next one: to sit outside.

A: On a balcony, a step, a bench, a chair in front of a café.

A: “It’s warm enough to sit outside.” “We sat outside until the sun moved.”

A: The next one: no plans until noon.

A: Nothing you have to do until the middle of the day.

A: “I have no plans until noon.” “No plans until this evening — it’s wonderful.”

A: The next one: to take your time.

A: To do something without hurrying, for as long as you need.

A: “Take your time. We’re not late.” “She took her time over breakfast.”

A: And the last one: to ease into the day.

A: To start the day gently, in small steps, instead of all at once.

A: “I need twenty minutes to ease into the day.” “Coffee first. Then I ease into the day.”

A: Those are all of them. Ten phrases. Now you’ll hear them again, in a second story.

The town by the water

A: Four hundred kilometers east, in a small town by the water, Emil is already outside.

A: Emil is sixty-eight. He has been getting up at five for fifty-one years, and he has stopped fighting it.

A: His wife, Ana, likes to wake up slowly sometime after seven, and he has learned to make coffee very quietly.

A: They have had this arrangement for forty years and neither of them has ever complained about it out loud.

A: The town has one long street, a church, two cafés, and a harbor with eleven boats.

A: At half past five, everything is closed, and Emil has the whole quiet street to himself.

A: He walks down to the water. On the far side of the bay there’s the first light — pale at first, and then pink.

A: The boats knock gently against each other. A rope on his small blue boat is loose again.

A: Emil stands at the end of the pier for a while, with his hands in his pockets.

A: He does this most mornings. He has never once thought of it as anything special.

A: At six, the bakery light goes on. That’s the only clock the town needs.

A: He walks back up through the empty street, and waits outside for a minute or two, until the door opens.

A: Marta the baker gives him the same nod she has given him for thirty years.

A: Inside, the bakery is warmer than the street. The windows are cloudy, and the first loaves are lined up behind the counter.

A: Marta is still carrying trays from the back room. Emil waits without asking her to hurry.

A: Years ago, he came here before work and bought the first bread he saw.

A: He had a bus to catch and a workshop to open. Some mornings, he was back outside in less than a minute.

A: Now he looks at everything in the case, although he already knows what he will choose.

A: Marta tells him which loaf came out of the oven last. He asks whether the pastries have apricot or plum inside.

A: She tells him apricot. He buys two.

A: He buys bread, still warm, and two small pastries, because Ana likes them and pretends not to.

A: Back at the house, he makes coffee in a small metal pot on the stove.

A: It takes four minutes and makes a sound at the end, and the smell of coffee goes up the stairs.

A: Emil takes his cup and sits outside, on the step by the door, with the bread beside him.

A: The morning air is cooler here than in the city. It smells of salt and cut grass.

A: A cat he doesn’t own sits down next to him, at a polite distance.

A: They have an understanding. He doesn’t feed it. It comes anyway.

A: At about half past six, a fishing boat goes out. Emil watches it until it turns.

A: He knows whose boat it is, and he knows more or less how their day will go.

A: He has no plans until noon either, but for a different reason.

A: Emil is retired. Most days he has no plans at all, and it took him two years to enjoy that.

A: Before he retired, he repaired boat engines at a workshop near the harbor.

A: His days began early and arrived in a clear order: open the doors, check the tools, answer the first phone call.

A: There was always another engine waiting and another person asking when it would be ready.

A: For the first year, he woke up at five and looked for something to fix.

A: He fixed a lot of things that didn’t need fixing.

A: He made lists on the back of old envelopes. A shelf in the kitchen. A gate in the garden. A chair that made a small sound when Ana sat down.

A: By breakfast, he had already chosen the work for the day.

A: Ana never told him to stop. She only asked him to sit with her while the coffee was still hot.

A: At first he sat for five minutes. Then ten. One morning he forgot about the list until lunchtime.

A: Then, slowly, he learned to sit on the step and drink the coffee and let the morning happen.

A: It’s harder than it sounds, if you’ve worked since you were seventeen.

A: A little after seven, a window opens upstairs.

A: Ana says something he doesn’t quite catch. He says he’ll bring the coffee up.

A: And he takes his time on the stairs, because the cup is full, and because there’s no reason to hurry.

A: They have breakfast at the kitchen table, with the door open.

A: The bread is still slightly warm. The pastries are eaten without comment.

A: Ana opens the local newspaper, but she doesn’t begin with the news.

A: She looks at the photograph on the back page, then reads Emil a notice about a concert in the town square.

A: The concert is next Friday. They agree that they might go.

A: “Might” is enough for a Saturday morning. They don’t need to put it on a calendar yet.

A: The newspaper stays open between them while they finish breakfast.

A: Afterwards, Ana reads at the table and Emil washes up slowly, one cup at a time.

A: Nobody is waiting for either of them.

A: This is how they ease into the day — bread, coffee, the open door, and no particular hurry.

A: By nine the street is awake. A delivery van. Two children walking beside one bicycle. The other café opening late, as always.

A: Emil goes out to look at the tomatoes, which are doing fine without him.

A: He checks them anyway. It’s a habit. And the habit isn’t really about the tomatoes.

A: His neighbor Luka is already in his own garden, tying a young tree to a wooden post.

A: They say good morning across the low wall. Luka asks if Emil has seen the weather report.

A: Emil hasn’t. He looks at the clear sky and says that rain would be useful.

A: Luka gives him three figs from a paper bag. Emil places them beside the tomatoes for later.

A: Neither man has crossed the wall, and neither conversation has needed more than a few words.

A: Ana comes out with the second coffee and they stand there together, looking at the small green things.

A: Neither of them says anything for a while. After forty years, that is also a kind of conversation.

A: Later he will tighten the loose rope on his boat, because it will take twenty minutes.

A: But not yet. First he finishes the coffee.

A: That’s the whole morning. It happens again tomorrow, and he isn’t tired of it.

Quiet repetition

A: Now a little practice. Very gentle.

A: I’ll describe something, and you can say the phrase in your mind.

A: Or you can just listen. That’s fine too.

A: You don’t jump out of bed. You come back to the day in your own time. What are you doing?

A: Waking up slowly.

A: The very early light, just as the sun comes up. What is it?

A: The first light.

A: You prepare coffee in the kitchen. What are you doing?

A: Making coffee.

A: The thing that fills the kitchen when the coffee is ready. What is it?

A: The smell of coffee.

A: The cool, clean air early in the day. What is it?

A: The morning air.

A: A street with almost nobody on it. What is it?

A: A quiet street.

A: You take your cup out to the balcony. What are you doing?

A: Sitting outside.

A: There’s nothing you have to do until the middle of the day. How would you say it?

A: No plans until noon.

A: You do something without hurrying, for as long as you need. What are you doing?

A: Taking your time.

A: And you start the day gently, in small steps. What are you doing?

A: Easing into the day.

A: That’s all the practice. Nothing more to do now.

The same morning, more slowly

A: Now, one last slow walk through the morning.

A: This time it’s you. Nothing to answer, nothing to remember.

A: Imagine you have nowhere to be.

A: You wake up without an alarm.

A: You wake up slowly. You don’t get out of bed yet.

A: Behind the curtains, there’s the first light.

A: The room is gray and soft, and the street outside is quiet.

A: After a while, you get up. The floor is cold. You don’t mind.

A: You go to the kitchen, and you make coffee.

A: You don’t hurry any part of it.

A: The kitchen fills with the smell of coffee.

A: You open the window, and the morning air comes in.

A: Cool, and clean, and a little like bread from somewhere.

A: You take your cup and you sit outside.

A: The light moves along the wall while you’re not watching it.

A: Somebody walks past on the quiet street below.

A: You have no plans until noon.

A: Nothing is waiting. Nothing is late.

A: You take your time.

A: And slowly, without deciding to, you ease into the day.

Final phrases and a good morning

A: Here are today’s phrases, one last time. Slowly.

A: To wake up slowly.

A: The first light.

A: To make coffee.

A: The smell of coffee.

A: The morning air.

A: A quiet street.

A: To sit outside.

A: No plans until noon.

A: To take your time.

A: To ease into the day.

A: When you’d like to practice them again, they’re waiting for you in Recursio — the link is below.

A: But there’s no hurry. That was the whole point of today.

A: Thank you for listening this morning.

A: Take your time with the rest of the day. See you next time.