Commuting

Today was a day of things familiar;  waking before the alarm, the path to St Pancras first thing in the morning, the Eurostar security where jewellery won't trigger the metal detectors and laptops can stay in their bags, the first "bonjour" as we enter France though still very much geographically in the centre of London.

A little while later, at three hundred kilometres per hour we pop out of the tunnel and everything changes, it's no longer an international call to phone our friends to confirm arrangements for the night.   We arrive and buy our onwards tickets from the nice young lady who apparently can't speak English, but is patient and helpful to correct my awful first attempts to communicate, still without the use of verbs and eventually gives in and asks us where we are from.

Then we sit for four hours in "our" corner of the cafe in Gare de l'Est, where two coffees and a pain au chocolat will pay the rent all day.

A man with a dog arrives at the next table, and we know we are in Paris.