Phrasal verbs and idioms in context - Lession 2: Karen

ENGLISH PHRASAL VERBS AND IDIOMS IN CONTEXT – 02
KAREN
 Karen McPherson was becoming increasingly anxious as each day went by. The flat she had taken on was proving to be much more expensive than she’d initially thought. The man at the estate agency had failed to mention the extortionate condominium expenses and so had the landlord. She had enquired of them at the time but had been told they were ‘una stupidaggine’ (a silly amount).
 The rent was more than she could realistically afford but it was less than the market value considering how spacious the flat was. It comprised of two large spacious bedrooms, a living room, a very big kitchen, a bathroom and two anti-rooms and a large hallway. What she liked most about it though was the large garden with a high wall and hedge all the way round it. Nobody could see in so she would have her privacy.
 She knew she could have held out a bit and found a smaller place to live but this had been the most ideal for her large sheepdog and two cats. She could have stayed on at her now ex boyfriend’s place for a month or two more but she’d reached the end of her tether with him and above all, his interfering old busybody of a mother. Karen had been left with no choice but to get out if she wished to preserve her sanity and keep her dignity intact. It hadn’t been easy to find a flat. She’d phoned at least fifty but as soon as
they learned about her pets, she’d been told in no uncertain terms that animals were not welcome. That’s when she decided to put things into the hands of an estate agent. The man in the agency had been very kind and had told her he knew of a very nice man who was renting a large garden flat at a reasonable price and he was sure he’d agree to her moving in with her precious pets. And so it was; the agent had been right. The landlord was very pleasant indeed and said that he loved animals and that it was human beings that scared him more than anything else in life.
 Now after eighteen months and having used up all her savings, panic was setting in. She could not fall back on the rent payments. Gawd! She was working her fingers to the bone to pay for it all. Every weekend was being spent, sometimes into the small hours of the morning, doing translations from Italian to English. She was also working five evenings for four hours in a row in a language school and doing private lessons during the day but still she was having difficulty in making ends meet. She realised she could no longer go on like this. She could move to a smaller place but the thought of living in a one-room flat was enough to make her shudder. She’d always been used to lots of space. Well if she didn’t take action pretty quickly she could soon find herself under a bridge.
 She knew what she had to do. She would have to sub-let one of the rooms or she may end up dying of hunger. She’d been economizing on food for far too long now – scouring the supermarkets for special offers or fifty per cent discounted food that was hitting its sell-by date. She dreamed of the day she could buy what she wanted to eat and not what was on offer. Her days of scrimping and scraping would be over.
 It might not be easy to find a flat-mate; not everyone was a pet lover. She would advertise for an Italian girl she thought. Italian girls were less prone to rolling in drunk with a bunch of friends at the weekend than English or Americans were. She could not 
be bothered with that kind of disturbance in her life. And so it was, she placed an ad on two internet websites.
 She’d require a two-month deposit. That would get her back on her feet financially.
 Notes:
 - extortionate condominium = uncomfortable building
GLOSSARY – PHRASAL VERBS
Be prone to – have the tendency/predisposition/inclined to
End up –be or do something in the end/an unplanned end result of something/eventually
Fall back on – default on payments due/go into arrears
Get out – escape
Go by – pass
Go on – continue
Hold out – wait to see if a better opportunity arises
Move in – start living in a place
Roll in – arrive, usually when a person rolls in, he/she arrives home very late and often not in a very good state (colloquialism)
Set in – usually refers to something not very pleasant which starts and continues to develop
Take on – undertake something requiring responsibility
Use up – consume/use until there is none left
***
GLOSSARY – IDIOMS AND EXPRESSIONS
Get back on (one’s) feet – to be in good health or a good financial state again after a bad period
In a row – one after the other/consecutively
In no uncertain terms – if you tell someone something in no uncertain terms, you state it clearly, without mincing your words, and that you mean what you say. The double negative in this phrase serves to fortify the meaning
Make ends meet – to struggle to make one’s money last from one salary until the next. Barely have enough money to survive.
Put things in the hands of (someone) – give a task to a third party to carry out/execute for you
Reach the end of (one’s) tether – reach a point where you are so tired and fed up that you can no longer carry on (continue)/lose all patience with someone or something
Scrimp and scrape – to spend money only on the bare essentials due to serious financial difficulty
Take action – begin do something about a situation
The small hours of the morning – very late, until about two or three in the morning
Work (one’s) fingers to the bone – work extremely hard