While flying from Paris to London is less expensive, making this trip via Chunnel was on our list. I do not like and will not use the term bucket-list - it's so conclusive. I prefer the term, our list.

The Chunnel is fast! We clocked speeds of over 200 mph and only about 20 minutes of the trip is actually in the tunnel under the English Channel. Most of the trip is through rather flat French farmland where we saw brilliant green fields of new crops, sandy-colored patches of freshly tilled soil and those wonderful yellow fields of mustard. The mustard flowers are not quite as bright as they were a few weeks ago when we first began to notice mustard fields. The yellow flowers are beginning to fade a bit as they prepare to produce the seeds that will eventually make it into some wonderful pickling spice or Grey Poupon.

Occasionally we passed clusters of quaint, similar looking houses that formed farm villages. They made me think they must be very nice places to live and raise families. I could not identify the crops being grown but I later Googled to learn most of them were cereal crops but they do raise dairy cattle and sheep as well.

The journey was easy, much easier than making way to the airport, checking luggage (and sweating the inevitable baggage weight-limits), going through security and then waiting at the gate for boarding time. We simply walked to the subway and caught the line to Gare du Nord in Paris train station where we boarded Eurostar to San Pancras station in London. Granted, we did have to go through security and immigration in order to travel from France to England but the process was much more simple than going through similar check-points at international airports. In London, we caught the Piccadilly Line to Earls Court and met Mary and Greg coming to greet us from the apartment we will share for the next four days. They arrived in London two days prior and have already become comfortable with the city. They will stay on for another few days after we depart on Sunday. It was so good, so good, to hug our friends. We have not seen them in almost two months!

We settled in for a bit then went out for lunch - we had Blackbird Pie! There were no real blackbirds in the pie, at least I hope there weren't, but the name is perfect. The pie is traditional pub food. It's made with a delicious boiled crust, filled with steak, chicken or any number of other pie fillings. It is baked in a cup-shaped mold or pan so it comes out nice and clean and stands beautifully-upright on the plate. It was served with a choice of mash or cabbage and a tiny cup of gravy or pie-liquor. There were probably 5,000 calories in that pie but it was delicious!

The weather was beautiful, not only by London standards, but by any measure. For the first time in months and months, we were able to walk outside sans coats, sweaters and jackets. The sunshine was brilliant and there was little wind. In the shade the air still felt a bit chilly - it felt more like a dry fall day than spring.

Our apartment has a roof-top sun deck. We took a glass of wine and enjoyed the sun, the air and the London skyline for about an hour. We perused all the possible day trips we can take from here, settled on one and signed ourselves up for a trip on Saturday to Windsor, Salisbury, Stonehenge and Bath. That gives us the next two days to simply have fun in London with Mary and Greg. Then we changed clothes and hopped back on the Piccadilly line for the Covent Garden stop. We had tickets for Kinky Boots!!!

Our tickets sat us on the second row (stalls, as they call them) at the Adelphi and Kinky Boots was great! It was fantastic! The music, energy, vocals, dancing, sets - everything was so good! It was Greg's first experience with live performance of a musical and he loved it. He said he thought he might not care for musicals since he's never been able to sit through a showing of the movie, The Sound of Music. I don't think I have ever been able to survive the whole movie myself either. But there is no comparison of a movie version of a musical and the real, live in-the-moment performance.

We stopped for cocktails and a light snack before heading home. It was a late night but a wonderful day