She would seize every opportunity to dive into the bathroom, in a swirl of white towels, and once in there she was as hard to dislodge as a limpet from a rock.

Gradually the magic of the island [Corfu] settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen.

We all travelled light, taking with us only what we considered to be the bare essentials of life. When we opened our luggage for Customs inspection, the contents of our bags were a fair indication...

Roger and I would squat in the heavily scented shade of the myrtle bushes and watch the array of creatures that passed us; at certain times of the day the branches were as busy as...

Theodore had an apparently inexhaustible fund of knowledge about everything, but he imparted this knowledge with a sort of meticulous diffidence that made you feel he was not so much teaching you something new, as...

Breakfast was, on the whole, a leisurely and silent meal, for no member of the family was very talkative at that hour. By the end of the meal the influence of the coffee, toast, and...

High time he had another tutor,’ said Larry. ‘You leave the house for five minutes and come back and find him disembowelling Moby Dick on the front porch.’ ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm,’...

Why keep in touch with them? That’s what I want to know,’ asked Larry despairingly. ‘What satisfaction does it give you? They’re all either fossilized or mental.’ ‘Indeed, they’re not mental,’ said Mother indignantly.’Nonsense, Mother…...

In conservation, the motto should always be ‘never say die’.

We stared at the odd garment and wondered what it was for. ‘What is it?’ asked Larry at length. ‘It’s a bathing costume, of course,’ said Mother. ‘What on earth did you think it was?’...

So I went instead and tasted Taki’s new white wine. Spiridion! what a wine…like the blood of a dragon and smooth as a fish…

It’s all your fault, Mother,’ said Larry austerely; ‘you shouldn’t have brought us up to be so selfish.’ ‘I like that!’ exclaimed Mother. ‘I never did anything of the sort!’ ‘Well, we didn’t get as...

Tea would arrive, the cakes squatting on cushions of cream, toast in a melting shawl of butter, cups agleam and a faint wisp of steam rising from the teapot shawl.

I said I *liked* being half-educated; you were so much more *surprised* at everything when you were ignorant.

I can’t be expected to produce deathless prose in an atmosphere of gloom and eucalyptus.

My childhood in Corfu shaped my life. If I had the craft of Merlin, I would give every child the gift of my childhood.

It was no half-hearted spring, this: the whole island vibrated with it as though a great, ringing chord had been struck. Everyone and everything heard it and responded.

Overflowing with the milk of human kindness, the family had invited everyone they could think of, including people they cordially disliked.

Until we consider animal life to be worthy of the consideration and reverence we bestow upon old books and pictures and historic monuments, there will always be the animal refugee living a precarious life on...