Monday morning was bright and sunny. A welcome change from the majority of Monday mornings of the past few months. That trivial fact being clear in my mind because Monday mornings of late I have spent shooting the next weeks episode of Eye on Real Estate, the local real estate show I host on the Rogers Cable Channel. Much of the worst of our winter weather which has brought us sleet, rain, total blizzards and record breaking cold temperatures the past few months seems to have fallen on Mondays.

On my very first episode for the new show, fueled by equal parts nerves and bravado I interviewed Barrie's just elected Mayor Jeff Lehman. He and I have both had equal time now to hone our skills and on the Monday morning past I stood warming my hands on my Tim Hortons cup outside of the Allandale train station waiting for interview number two with the Mayor as he pulled in right on cue, his black Nissan looking cleaner and shinier than most other salt stained cars passing by along Lakeshore Road. When you're Mayor, dirt is the enemy I suppose.

A second or two behind him the red Rogers TV truck pulled into the lot and Rogers producer slash camera man Doug Measures hopped out simultaniously with the rising truck tail door. 

Grabbing the camera gear we quickly decided on a spot outside of the station to shoot our interview. Just as we finished, Roman, the man heading up the restoration stepped out from the north station building and motioned us inside to show us his archive of salvaged wood and plaster moldings and artifacts collected over the past year from within and beneath what was once a grandiose restaurant housed within the station.

Though rail transit is looked on as a second or third option by most today, at the turn of the last century it was the travel choice of the who's who as was Barrie as a Summer destination choice. The restaurant greeted rail visitors with majestic pillars finished in gold gilded plaster moldings bearing the embossed logo of the Grand Trunk Railway and examples of some of the best European plaster and carpentry finishes of the day. Mayor Lehman reminded me that even he had not had the privilage to see what Roman was proudly showing us. Some of what we saw you can as well on this weeks episode.

Later that morning I sat down at Fendley Hall on Bryne Drive in Barrie's south end with Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak prior to a luncheon with Barrie Chamber of Commerce members and various Barrie residents, not all of Tory persuasion interestingly enough.

You expect a politician working his way across the map from one media interview to the next to be canned in their responses but Mr. Hudak seemed to speak a bit beyond the political soundbite handbook with me.

In the 15 minutes or so between the wrap up of our interview and his introduction to the waiting lunch guests downstairs, we talked, aside from politics, about our home towns, the weather, the drive and some everyday stuff you wouldn't expect to be talking about with the man who might be your Premier in a few months. As he exited to head down the stairs I had one of those "what just happened?" moments. 

All in all one of my more memorable mondays of the past few months and maybe a favorite of the ten or so shows we have completed to date..

Watch: 8:30pm Sunday March 20th, 2011 on Rogers TV Cable 10/53 in Simcoe County