"Hello." The voice came from behind her, startling her. She looked up - and up - and up into the whiskery face of the most gigantic squirrel she could ever have imagined. "I," said the creature, "am Peregrine Oliver George, commonly known as Pog." 10-year-old Ebren feels lonely and abandoned. Her parents are geologists, and, until now, she has travelled with them to far and exotic places. But this year she has been left behind and is staying with her grandmother in a small flat in a quiet London Square, prior to being sent to live with her uncle and aunt, and cousins Tristan and Tamzyn, in...

Many of these early memories have come to me unbidden without any prodding or poking; always there, part of the fabric of my childhood. Others, I suspect, will not be so easy to retrieve. Until I started this journey into the past, I would have said I had a very good memory, but now I find I am severely challenged. Do I actually remember that or have I heard it so many times that it has become as mine? Was it really like that or has time and distance enhanced, embellished, or distorted it? How can we know? Can we know?

A collection of thoughts and reflections in the Japanese poetic style of haiku and tanka.