It's been a few days since the last entry.

Paul Begley was the driving force behind the Centre for the Study of Leadership and Ethics, which has since become an international consortium of which ACU, and our Centre in particular is a member. Paul retired from the role of chair a bit over a year ago, but he continues in an unofficial patron type of role. I am about to finish up at our Centre and I wanted to take the opportunity to make sure we had done everything we could to pursue a healthy future for the consortium - hence the need to catch up with Paul.

Paul and his wife Marilyn live in the town of Mt. St. Louis about half way between Barrie and Midland in Ontario's lakes country. After having done a bit of shopping in the morning, I got the Greyhound out to Barrie where Paul picked me up, and we spent a good part of the afternoon and evening picking up the threads, updating Paul on developments from the UCEA conference, and considering a range of scenarios. Time well spent. Marilyn cooked a lovely roast dinner, which we washed down with some Australian wine and followed with some Niagara Ice Wine (furnished by me). I stayed the night, the grateful recipient of the Begley's fabulous hospitality.

Paul droppped me in to Barrie in the morning and I spent a good chunk of time dealing with emails, doctoral drafts etc. I then went to a production of Warhorse. The story of the play is based on a children's book, and the acting was good, but the staging - making spectacular use of puppetry - including full sized warhorses - was the real star. It's coming to Australia in the new year. Get to it - that's an order :-)

A quiet evening chasing up references for a revision of a paper for publication. Having slept much better the previous two nights, I didn't fade so early and got a good bit done.

Thursday morning saw me checking out, leaving my luggage and heading off to meet with two superintendents at the Toronto Catholic Schools Board, Barbara and Mike McMorrow. They were very generous with their time as we discussed issues connected with leadership of Catholic systems, and I recorded an interview with Barbara for use in aJanuary summer school.

I got the excellent subway back to King Station, collected my suitcase from the Victoria, and headed back to the bust terminal on Bay Street. The weather was glorious, and I was actually too hot in my winter coat.

The London trip was on a new kind of Greyhound service called Greyhound Express. The idea is good, but it has a few kinks to sort out in its delivery. I was actually quite early as a consequence of not having known how long the walk with luggage in tow would take. About 3.45 they announced that passengers for the 4.30 London Express were to g to be seated in a special priority area, ostentatiously roped off. We received little bits of information every 5 minutes or so from a very cheery attendant who periodically went off to round up more customers. (Would have been easier just to put a sign up saying London 4.30 service, sit here!). Having been checked off, they then got us, about 4.10 to stand in channels according to our boarding number. So, instead of remainin seated like other passengers, we stood around for quite some time before we boarded. mmmm. The buses n the express routes have additional leg room and wi fi - but no fold out table for the laptop. Oh, and the wi fi was pretty ordinary. Short verdict - glad I didn't pay extra for the service.