Example sentences of "[pers pn] [vb past] be [v-ing] a [adj] " in BNC.

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1 I 'd been expecting a great hall with a giant round table , towering turrets , a moat and a drawbridge , but , of course , it turned out to be a ruin .
2 I 'd been writing a monthly column for Options as long as I 'd been writing at all .
3 If I 'd been doing a pukka delivery , I could just have carried straight on virtually due north and come to City Road .
4 I 'd been applying a special cream to his ankles which was supposed to harden the skin , but it did n't seem to do much good .
5 I have no compass to tell me what I am destined for ; and yet , when I look back , everything seems to fit as well together as if I 'd been following a benevolent daimon all along …
6 He turned out to be an inspector of taxes with whom I had been conducting a mini back-duty enquiry and which was in the concluding stages .
7 I had been swimming a long time that first Sunday , far out in the bay , and he could easily have slipped the things on to the Bourani end of the beach while I was in the water .
8 In those days I had been doing a good deal of drawing ; and , having come under Wyndham Lewis 's influence , I took my Vorticist efforts round to the Master , and , to my surprise , I found that he thought quite well of them .
9 She had been wearing a light cotton shirt with a dark blue skirt .
10 She did not confirm for them that she had been meeting an escaped prisoner and she did not explain the significance of the print-out , but they clearly knew the first and it would be only a short time before they worked out the second .
11 I was sure she had been holding a small phial with the letters ‘ SUL ’ written on it .
12 She had been expecting a small , dusty room filled with paintings draped in cloths that were thick with dust , where air would have a musty scent of old canvas and decay .
13 If she had been expecting an immediate outcry , she was sadly disappointed , but she was a determined young woman .
14 She is seen to suffer for what she did , and Mary , the other sister , likewise ‘ paid heavily ’ : let down by an Indian student with whom she had been having a long affair .
15 She claimed she had been having a passionate affair with Mary Jo 's husband Joey , 36 .
16 She had been having a little innocent fun .
17 True to the word , she had been adding a full bottle to her small garden pond on a weekly basis , for the past month .
18 She had been rehearsing a new song on the way to the Ritz , but did n't know who wrote it .
19 After hearing that they had been attending a high school graduation party , they were released by the judge on the condition that they were each driven to their parents ' home exactly as they appeared in court — with only a blanket for
20 One moment they had been crossing a burning glade of shoulder-high grass in the full glare of the sun and the next they descended abruptly into a dark , silent , mysterious world where the air was cool and moist , the earth soft and spongy underfoot , and dazzling orchids blazed suddenly among the deep green undergrowth .
21 Most of the ‘ masters ’ of torture said that they had been fighting a desperate unseen war , whose atmosphere could not be imagined by people from democracies .
22 He also told police he 'd been copying a homosexual video tape .
23 Clearly he 'd been having a bad time of it .
24 Since then it had been showing a worrying tendency , when Rincewind was feeling rundown or especially threatened , to try to get itself said .
25 He had been receiving an extraordinary number of new birds from Elizabeth 's brothers , Stephen and Charles Coxen , who had emigrated to Australia some years before .
26 He had been expecting a great difference , but not the extent of the hostility that had greeted him and the reality of a giant Worm wielding enormous electrical energy .
27 He had been using a great deal of unnecessary and inappropriate tension when reciting .
28 He had been using an ingenious method .
29 Only then did he fully realize that he had been experiencing a mild dull pressure in the head , as well as the nausea , physical and mental fatigue .
30 He had been serving a 20-year term in Nicosia 's central prison .
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