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

The dogs would fan out ahead of us, cocking their legs, snuffling in the dark holes that honeycombed the great, ancient olive trees, and dashing off in noisy and futile pursuit of the swallows

Larry was designed by Providence to go through life like a small, blond firework, exploding ideas in other people’s minds, and then curling up with catlike unctuousness and refusing to take any blame for the consequences.

They were maps that lived, maps that one could study, frown over, and add to; maps, in short, that really meant something.