He came back to London on the Friday, and after work we headed out to Covent Garden where we would meet up with Sasha. The original idea was to visit an art sculpture that had been installed in Covent Garden that Dion had heard of, and then afterwards attend the Britbound drinks near there - but earlier in the day the Britbound drinks suddenly changed venue to the Queen of Hoxon, which was out east and quite out of the way for the sculpture. While waiting for Sasha outside the designated meeting spot - the Apple store - somehow, I managed to convince Dion to go inside the store and wander around (Dion hates Apple products - without any hugely justifiable reason that he can argue his stance with, he's just an apple hater and nothing changes his mind. That's fine, everyone's entitled to their own opinion even if I disagree with his view!). Once we'd all met up, we wandered into the main building at Charing Cross to see the sculpture - a huge number of white balloons suspended from the roof over the indoor courtyard, which all started illuminating with a normal light colour in a sort of slow wave pattern and would also pulse. We went to take a seat at a fancy place below, for a drink - only to find out the table wasn't free, you had to have a reservation and there was maybe 15min wait for a table. So we went to another place down the other end, and managed to get a table outside in the courtyard right under the balloons - excellent! a few drinks later, we had dinner at a restaurant who's name I cannot recall in Charing Cross - it was a lovely little place though and I recall the food being excellent.
So, on the day, we traipsed quite a way from South Wimbledon across London to Harrow-on-the-Hill, on the Metropolitan Line which is the oldest of the tube lines. To get there in the shortest time by tube, it involved 4 tube changes - Northern Line to Victoria Line, to Bakerloo Line and then Metropolitan! Once at Harrow-on-the-Hill, we checked in and awaited the arrival of our train. After a while, it arrived - with L.150 at one end, the rake of wooden carriages, a vintage electric locomotive and then L.44 or "Metropolitan #1" at the other end. Our coach was car D, which we found with little trouble and we hopped into our small compartment with our travelling companions. We had paid a little bit more for First Class over Standard Class, because the difference was a pittance - and we hoped it might mean we get more of a chance to see out the window. Now, when I say compartment, that's exactly what it was - there is no corridor in the carriage - every compartment had doors either side that exited out the side of the carriage. Absolutely no way to walk from one end of the train to the next inside! and, because of this, every compartment had its own carriage attendant to make sure you didn't open the doors (which can't be locked) while the train is in motion, and that you didn't stick your head out the windows as there is not much of a gap between the sides of the trains and poles or other trains outside. This also meant no cameras being poked out of the window, looking ahead or behind. So in our compartment we had 8 people total - myself, Dion and Sasha; an older gentleman with his son and his partner; the carriage attendant; and a young boy who would have been about 13-14 at a guess. The boy was travelling by himself, and was travelling on all the 3 excursions that day - and was dressed in his best clothes, with black dress pants, a lilac-coloured shirt and a tie on. He was also quite noticeably a train enthusiast, asking the carriage attendant a lot of "train" questions. I was probably a bit like that once, but I don't think I was ever that bad - I don't think I ever really had the opportunity to be! mind you, I have probably been worse in different ways since but surely as an active volunteer, not just an armchair railfan. Our journey was not a small jaunt either - it went from Harrow-on-the-Hill to Chesham, one of the far extremities of the Metropolitan Line, before doubling back and then travelling along the Watford Branch to Watford, using a triangle track to go directly onto the Watford Branch which must be fairly rarely used and rarely able to be travelled over by passengers. For reference, the 2nd trip was from Watford to Chesham and then back to Watford; while the 3rd and final trip of the day was from Watford to Chesham, and then to Harrow-on-the-Hill. Below is a map of the Metropolitan Line sourced from Wikipedia, showing the line in real terms rather than the normal diagrammatical Harry Beck-style Tube maps everyone knows and loves (or loathes) today.