Maxime dear: the quiet little worlds he creates out of everyday objects, something he has done since he was very little

Ever since I can remember, Maxime gravitated toward making his own toys, his own little worlds. At Sereville, there were postal routes and deliveries to be made within a world burrowed into immense piles of topsoil (soil thanks to Papa's pharaonic garden projects).

There was also an open-air butcher's shop of fantastic proportions, residing on a series of three successive sand piles. The butcher, Maxime, specialized in wild boar. In fact, he sold nothing else. Papa was kindly requested to make purchases of this meat innumerable times, posing each time as a different customer, with a different personality and different demands. Somedays, the quantity of customers reached such heights that if these had been real purchases of wild boar, this entire category of hunting game in Burgundy would have been depleted.

There were always water works and canals. Sometimes there were little piggies, plastic ones from the German firm Schleich, and these critters had the maddening habit of getting dirty all the time, despite being thoroughly rinsed in a minature water canal by Maxime. The reason was, as soon as the piggies were clean, Maxime took an even bigger delight in getting them extraordinarily dirty. A feat which we would simultaneously greet with giggles and "Phui Teuble!", a Czech childrens' expletive.

And sticks. He loved playing with sticks. In his eyes, they were tanks and artillery and soldiers and supply trucks. He would break them into different lengths, and there was a strict code as to which stick represented what. Lo to Papa if he picked up a stick and used it as a tank, when it was actually a troop transporter.

And to this day, these worlds are dreamt up by Maxime, off by himself, in some corner of the garden.