Hello from London, England as I begin a 17-day Euro-vacation.

I had hoped to leave Sunday morning out of Newark but the lone morning flight on the home team airline was overbooked so I delayed my escape until I found an open seat on a bird that left at 615 PM Sunday.

The morning departure out of New York would have better synched with my early-to-rise rhythm but it’s always been the case that US air carriers schedule most of their European service to leave the East Coast at night to arrive in Europe early the next morning so the airplane comes back in time to continue the cycle.

Other than losing half the day Monday, the later-than-hoped-for departure is no big deal given the long duration of the vacay.

The cornerstone of this big trip to Europe is a return to Toulouse but I’m gonna make a few stops before I reach that great city in the southwest of France.

I’ll do three nights in London and three nights in Krakow before the week-plus stay in Toulouse and a nightcapper in Antwerp.

I’ll be gone when the Pope comes to NYC – and I’ll have to wait to make that first visit to the newly-christened 7 line station at 11^th Ave and 34^th Street. I feel good that the Mets will be just fine in my absence and can hang on until I get back.

Here in London, I’m staying with my cousin Cynthia who has lived and worked here for more than 20 years.

A few travel notes:

-The six-hour flight to London was good. I sat in a window seat on the left side in the second-to-last row. We hit a couple of big potholes about one hour into the trip at 37-thousand feet. That brief bit of turbulence rocked the boat pretty good but nobody seemed to react. I watched the movie “Still Alice” on the small screen positioned on the seat back in front of me. Julianne Moore was excellent in the starring role of an accomplished Columbia U prof who suffers from early onset Alzheimer’s. The only other media consumption highlight of note as I passed time on the plane was the posthumously published one-page essay about gefilte fish by Oliver Sacks. Entitled “Filter Fish,” Sacks fondly recounts preparation of the special Sabbath snack by his mother – and later his housekeeper.

-We held on the ground in Newark for about 30 minutes and then made a half-dozen loops just before approach to Heathrow. Both tactics were designed to kill time so as not to arrive before the lifting of the London airport’s morning curfew which seems aimed to hold carriers close to their scheduled arrival time.

-The new concession infrastructure being built down the middle of concourses at Newark’s terminal C are a mixed blessing for users of that airport. Yeah, it makes for more much-needed refreshment options but it gobbles up way to much space up and down busy corridors filled with passengers and their luggage on wheels. During peak moments at Newark, the flow of people is crimped by the ill-conceived placement of new businesses and their hardware in large swaths of territory meant for movement of humans. Much more focus should be placed on upkeep of the grungy, unkempt departure lounges that look and feel like a bus station waiting area that’s been left to rot.

Gonna hit a Football League Championship match Tuesday night in Greenwich and try to cover some other neighborhoods throughout the day. More later…

As a Met fan who’s been consistently supportive of using caution when it comes to deployment of the young starting stable of dynamic arms that have emerged in Flushing the last few years, I find myself departing from that philosophy when Matt Harvey and his agent Scott Boras put up the 180 inning firewall over the last weekend.

Harvey’s at 166.1 IP with 25 games to go in the regular season. The Mets are five games up in the division. GM Sandy Alderson and manager Terry Collins have been diligently cognizant of the science and metrics tied to what may or may not overtax surgically-repaired arms that throw mid-90’s heat in between other varieties of pitches that bring less velocity but greater strain on the elbow and wrist.

Seemingly out of nowhere in the middle of a feel-good pennant race, Boras popped off publicly on Friday with a terse warning that the Mets organization was on the brink of allowing Harvey to violate a medically-based edict. The hard 180 of course would leave Harvey in position to make two, maybe three more starts. Sitting in a dugout in Miami, Harvey attempted to address the only-in-NY-type firestorm about 24 hours after the Boras blurt  and basically endorsed the position staked out by his hot-shot rep. A day later, Harvey sheepishly posted a declaration on Derek Jeter’s website that he’d pitch in the postseason if it comes to it without reconciling the conflict that may create with the 180 inning limit.

Harvey had Tommy John surgery in October 2013 to fix a partially torn elbow ligament in his throwing arm. He sat out all of the 2014 and has been solid in 2015 despite a lack of run support.

What makes the Boras line in the sand tough to handle at this moment is the arbitrary nature of 180 innings without consideration of what got Harvey to this point. Collins has focused on pitch counts and lifts all of his young starters in the 100-110 range. With Alderson’s heavy involvement, he’s using the skipped start and close monitoring of arm strength/pain/fatigue with input from the individual starters to make sure his three (now four – with Matz) young fireballers are feeling good.

This Met team is perhaps a year ahead of schedule thanks to the Cespedes pickup. It has a shot to go all the way. Harvey has every right to protect a huge payday that’s looming – but not fully available to him until after the 2018 season. What perturbs the Met fan – and what caused the media firestorm of hostility to the assertion by Harvey/Boras is that 180 is just a number. It’s not a cliff’s edge. Not when you’re in a position to do something special as a team. Other considerations that have been and will be deployed in Harvey’s assignments the rest of the way can mitigate or allow for some modification of a hard cap.

Foremost is an honest dialogue about how Harvey feels after Tuesday night’s big start in DC and what may or may not come after.

What’s blatantly unfair is when Boras – or newspaper columnists Tom Boswell and Michael Powell – paint Alderson and the Mets brass as villains for trying to squeeze too much out of the turnip.

The Mets are finessing a unique dilemma while layering some instinct and practicality on top of the guidance from a medical doctor who fixes arms for a living but doesn’t have full understanding of one’s limitations once they’re repaired.

I think back to that 40-degree night at Wrigley in May when I sat in the LF bleachers and watched Harvey get yanked at 100 pitches. #33 was cruising but Collins knew another inning might put Harvey’s reconstructed elbow in possible peril given the conditions. The bullpen failed and Harvey’s gem thru 7 was wasted. The short leash has been in effect in spot after spot to get Harvey to where he is now.

Met fans would be fine I think if Harvey simply says his arm is dead – or doesn’t feel right. But to turn the 180 cap into a beef with the team is backfiring badly. Especially when his mule-like proclamations for the last 12 months have all been about not wanting to be babied.

There’s no book on how to do this but the Mets are taking the correct approach here. I love how Alderson has been assertive in sharing his vision on the topic even if it means offending the Dark Knight. The way the last five weeks have gone for the Mets, I think Harvey will find it irresistible to do anything but repudiate the ultimatum and participate meaningfully in what looks to be an Amazin’ home stretch. And if he doesn’t, I believe the regret he feels will prompt deep consideration of whether Boras stuck his nose in a place it didn’t belong.