Home > Work > The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)
21 " said Mother vaguely. "
― Gerald Durrell , The Corfu Trilogy (The Corfu Trilogy #1-3)
22 " setting all the beetles that were tied to it buzzing sleepily on the end of their strings like a flock of captive emeralds. "
23 " I thought we were going to have chops,’ complained Larry aggrievedly. ‘I spent all morning getting my taste buds on tiptoe with the thought of chops. What happened to them?’ ‘I’m afraid it’s the owls, dear,’ said Mother apologetically. ‘They have such huge appetites.’ Larry paused, a spoonful of curry halfway to his mouth. "
24 " I lay in the garden in the shade of the tangerine trees and devoured the book, "
25 " Are we having a plague of owls?’ Larry inquired. ‘Are they attacking the larder and zooming out with bunches of chops in their talons? "
26 " Roger and I would squat in the sweet-scented myrtles and lay bets with each other as to whether or not, on this particular morning, George was going to fight an olive tree. "
27 " I’m making some scones,’ said Mother, and sighs of satisfaction ran round the table, for Mother’s scones, wearing cloaks of home-made strawberry jam, butter, and cream, were a delicacy all of us adored. "
28 " Well, I want you all to be polite,’ said Mother firmly, adding, ‘and you’re not to mention owls, Larry. She might think we’re peculiar.’ ‘We are,’ concluded Larry with feeling. "
29 " dropped in on my old shepherd friend Yani who provided us with some bread and fig cake and a straw hat full of wild strawberries to sustain us. "
30 " sleepily through the olive groves, silvered by a moon as large and as white as a magnolia blossom. "
31 " The warm air smelled of the day’s sunshine, of dew, and of a hundred aromatic leaf scents. "
32 " you reached a small half-moon bay, rimmed with white sands and great piles of dried ribbon-weed that had been thrown up by the winter storms and lay along the beach like large, badly made birds’ nests. "
33 " Roger and I would make our way down through the breathless olive groves, vibrating with the cries of the cicadas, and pad our way along the dusty road, Roger sneezing voluptuously as his great paws stirred up the dust, which went up his nose like snuff. "
34 " shiny ribbon-weed, looking like dark feather boas, anchored to the sand, "
35 " to bring us a handful of figs from his tree or a few almonds, milky and fresh, which we would crack between the smooth stones on the beach. "
36 " It was the hottest hour of the day when even the cicadas seem to slow down and falter occasionally in their song. The black ants moved busily across the cloth, gathering the crumbs of our food. "
37 " cautioning Roger upon pain of death not to utter a sound, we made our way cautiously into the villa and slipped like shadows into my bedroom. "
38 " The myrtle forests were full of mantises some three inches long, with vivid green wings. They would sway through the myrtle branches on their slender legs, their wickedly barbed front arms held up in an attitude of hypocritical prayer, their little pointed faces with their bulbous straw-coloured eyes turning this way and that, missing nothing, like angular, embittered spinsters at a cocktail party. "
39 " in a star-lit sky, shedding only the feeblest light. "
40 " Here Sally’s hooves crushed the herbs underfoot and the warm air became redolent with the scent of sage and thyme. "