It’s funny how sometimes you are so used to seeing things that your eyes just glaze over them. Going back to Lorraine in North East France last summer – which is where I grew up – I rode my bike everywhere and it allowed me to take the time to rediscover things. I remember that when I was little, the sides of the roads were covered with beautiful wild flowers. As I grew up, with the ever-increasing use of pesticides, they had all but disappeared. If anything, we had lost the variety of flowers that made the country so beautiful. I was therefore pleasantly surprised last summer to see that wild flowers seem to have made a come back, at least many of them, including poppies which, as kids, we were not allowed to cut because it meant it would rain the next day! I hope they are here to stay, and I also hope it means less chemicals are sprayed in the fields these days.
