One event stands out during our time in Fukui, whichlasted until March 1987, and this was a year beforethat when our daughter and a friend found anabandoned puppy on their way back from school andbrought him home. We called him Koro and for thenext fourteen years he was an inseparable part ofour family. Like our daughter this dog was givenlife in Fukui, but first he had to recover from amajor injury sustained on the occasion of his firstNew Year with us which the vet had declared fatal.Yet, amazingly, he survived and lived with us allthrough our Fukui days and then at the new house inToyonaka. He never ceased to bring us joy andhappiness and was an indispensable companion forNobuko who had many ‘ collected moments’ with him inToyonaka. There is a wonderful selection ofphotographs that show this. He is the subject of oneof the essays (No. 12) which Nobuko wrote over aperiod of two years starting when her illness waspronounced incurable.

And so I’m sure Nobuko would say ‘I love it!’ to thissegment. There are fewer photographs of our daughterbecause she was growing up at this time. Life inToyonaka was nice in a different way from being inFukui and lasted for some time longer, until March1999 when we moved to Kyoto due to my transfer fromOsaka University to Kyoto University in 1996,thereby avoiding a twōhour one-way commute, not tomention the professional demands from my newappointment.