Summary of my family and other animals by gerald durrell
Answers
The book is an autobiographical account of five years in the childhood of naturalist Gerald Durrell, age 10 at the start of the saga, of his family, pets and life during a sojourn on the island of Corfu. The book is divided into three sections, marking the three villas where the family lived on the island. Gerald is the youngest in a family consisting of their widowed mother, the eldest son Larry, the gun-mad Leslie, and diet-obsessed sister Margo together with Roger the dog. They are fiercely protected by their taxi-driver friend Spiro (Spiros "Americano" Halikiopoupenelos) and mentored by the polymath Dr. Theodore Stephanides who provides Gerald with his education in natural history. Other human characters, chiefly eccentric, include Gerald's private tutors, the artistic and literary visitors Larry invites to stay, and the local people who befriend the family.
Answer:
The house was bustling with activities. Everyone was busy preparing for the early September Christmas party.
Spiro(family friend who is a taxi driver) visited two or three times a day to deliver the chairs, tables, trestles, and foodstuffs. Margo was busy drawing colored murals in chalk on huge sheets of brown paper. Leslie was supervising the arrangement of chairs and tables. Gerald and the dogs were running errands and giving advises. Larry was sleeping in his bedroom upstairs, not very concerned about the party preparation. Mother was in the kitchen making delicious food for the guests, she was like the interior of a volcano amongst the clouds of steam and sizzling pots.
The party that was thrown by the Durrell family was usually at a moments notice. They invited everyone they could think of including people whom they disliked. Their party's' never went as they desired and their Christmas party was no exception.
Gerald Durrell was a real nature and animal lover. In his regal collection; stayed albatrosses, magenpies, terrapins, water snakes, a pigeon, scorpion, a gull and many more astonishing creature that are generally not seen as pets.
Gerald had recently found an ancient terrapin(named it the Old Plop) and to celebrate that, he decided to reorganise his terrapin pond which was an old tin wash-tub. Then after arranging he felt the need of goldfish. Spiro bought him five gleaming goldfish. He transferred the goldfish to the tank of the water snakes and terrapins.
Then after breakfast, he was horrified to find that two out of his five goldfish .He was so excited and delighted on getting the goldfish that he had forgotten that both terrapins and water snakes liked goldfish occasionally. Then he thought of moving the reptiles in another place for the moment and then think of an idea of keeping them together by lunch time.
After lunch too he could not think of a way to keep them together, then to his horror he found that someone kept the water snakes' tank into the full glare of the sun.
He went to his mother to ask for the permission of keeping the water snakes' in the bath for an hour or so. Mother gave him the permission, but also told him that he must make sure that everyone finished bathing and that he should disinfect the bathtub afterwards. He agreed. He filled the bath with nice cool water and placed the snakes inside.
Then the guests started coming, mother became busy talking to the guests and Gerald was in a conversation with his natural history teacher, Theodore. All talk was abruptly interrupted by a bellow from inside the house. It sounded like a minotaur suffering from tooth ache.
Leslie came out clad in nothing but a small towel. His face was all red in rage, he was very horrified to find bleeding snakes in his bathtub. He snarled telling everyone about the huge length of the snakes present in hid bath. The guests who knew the Durrell family well were eager to know what happened and the uninitiated ones were wondering if to ignore the who thing and continue with their discussion or to leap on Leslie before he attacks someone.
Then after many arguments, Larry told the guests about the incidents where Gerald's faunae had attacked him. He told about the time when he was attacked by a scorpion, then the time when magenpies had torn down everything into pieces. He also told them about Quasimodo, Gerald's pigeon. One night, Quasimodo woke Larry up at half past three and tried to push his rectum into his eyes.
After that the guests were very happy with the food. After lunch some of the guests and the Durrell family asked Spiro to drive them down to the sea. They relaxed there until it was time to return time for tea. The guests were so pleased with the mother's hospitality and delicious food that after being overloaded with food yet they accepted one more slice of cake.
After dinner, some of the guests and the Durrell family laid on the veranda in little groups. They talked with no specific purpose. The repose, the indolence mingled with the approaching night