Patricia Joan Joynes, 1932 - 2022

Mum, Dad, Myself and Aimee in Ceret, France.

My Mum loved to travel. George and I sometimes joined her and Dad on their winter sojourns to Florida, Mexico, France, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus. I have many happy memories of those times. Of sketching together (she pushed me to stop using pencil and move into pen), experimenting with local cuisine (what do we do with tomatillos, duck breast on sale lets find some recipes) playing kitchen bridge (because I wont take it seriously enough for the other 3) and searching for all the possible bakeries to purchase and taste test, croissant.

She loved to garden, even continuing with a raised garden and a balcony garden when they moved to an apartment. She enjoyed sketching and watercolour painting and for many years used those paintings as her Christmas cards to friends and family. She used to enjoy cross country skiing and playing tennis. She learned to type Braille and volunteered transcribing books.  Her strongest and most long standing passion was the theatre. She acted, directed and produced with Georgetown Little Theatre and Garrison Little Theatre, helping to found Garrison upon moving to the Fort Erie area. She acted professionally a number of times. She was involved with amateur theatre right up to the point that Covid put an end to it.

She had the courage to move to Canada, away from family and friends,with 4 young children, settling first in Quebec and then in Ontario. She hated cleaning and I remember her putting on a record to dance and sing to, while cleaning, making it more bearable. Taking the ferry from England to France made her nervous and she would stand on the stern until she could no longer see one country and move to the bow to get the first glimpse of the next, yet she took numerous cruise ship vacations.

She always wanted to open a Christmas present on Christmas Eve rather than wait another day. She could be bought to tears when we teased her about the day she ran over a nest of baby rabbits with the lawn mower. She loved all their dogs..Taffy, Patsy, Snoopy, Butch, Toffee, Molly and Rusty.

 She was 90 years old and had suffered from cognitive degeneration for the last couple of years.She passed away sometime in the night before New Years Eve, a few days after hip surgery due to a fall. She had had a full and interesting life and I will miss her.