Notes from a Small Island

by Bill Bryson

When the program finished, I was about to hoist myself from the chair and bid this happy trio a warm adieu when the door opened and Mrs. Gubbins came in with a tray of tea things and a plate of biscuits of the sort that I believe are called teatime variety, and everyone stirred friskily to life, rubbing their hands keenly and saying, “Ooh, lovely.” To this day, I remain impressed by the ability of Britons of all ages and social backgrounds to get genuinely excited by the prospect of a hot beverage.

“Puffins!” she said and gave me a still more withering expression that asked how anyone could be so lacking in fundamental human decency. “The Colonel adores puffins. Don’t you, Arthur?” She was definitely sleeping with him.

It was a bit like a country club for crazy people. I liked it very much.

Corfe is a popular and pretty place, a cluster of stone cottages dominated by the lofty, jagged walls of its picturesque and much-visited castle—everyone’s favorite ruin after Princess Margaret.

I watched out for Tintern Abbey, made famous of course by the well-known Wordsworth poem “I Can Be Boring Outside the Lake District Too,”

He appeared to regard his nose as a kind of midfaced snack dispenser.