As a little boy from the city, I had a chance to find out about nature in a quite extraordinary way that had a profound impact on my character. It was in this little village in Normandy where my grandparents lived, between Falaise and Pont-d’Ouilly, that I had my first contact with nature and animals. My grandfather opened my sister’s and my eyes to the world around us. He showed us the glow-worms that ‘lit up’ as night fell, the hares that ran towards the safety of shelter, the bird’s nests hidden in the hedgerows, the insects that buzzed… He taught us to listen to the noises instead of just hearing them, he attuned our ears to the gentle whistle of the wind in the leaves, the chirruping of the birds, the rasping noise some insects made, the rustling of small animals scurrying through the grass…I realised that life was swarming around me, I imagined myself as a butterfly on a flower or a mole burrowing in the earth...