Patsy Winters Lemche
It has been fun reading what folks have ended up doing all these many years.
How to sum up so many in one go! I am living in Vancouver (actually North Vancouver) and have lived in the west most of the years since university. The outdoors has always been a priority for me and the life out west is better suited to the lifestyle that I love. For recreation, I downhill ski in winter, hike in summer and hope to be doing both for the rest of my life. If one’s mother is any indication, then I will be at least skiing—she is 86, soon to be 87 and still downhill skiing!
To summarize a few of those years: graduated from Bishop’s University, trained as a computer programmer, married and moved west a year after graduating. My then (no longer) husband was going to law school and I worked as a programmer, providing analysis of data for researchers in the Faculty of Medicine. Those years were fun—filled with good friends, parties, camping trips and travel to Mexico.
Next phase was Ottawa where my husband was executive assistant to John Turner, Finance Minister at the time. We lived there 4 years—the marriage did not survive those heady Trudeau days in Ottawa. I headed back to Vancouver in ’76.
At this point, I had started articles to become a CA. As soon as I obtained the CA, I went immediately into computer audit and have remained in IT ever since.
It was at this point I met my current husband, Soren—skiing at Whistler. We still ski a lot and we were hiking together up until his heart failure about 8 years ago. We lived in Calgary for 5 years and got into backcountry skiing in a big way until our son, Peter, arrived and then it was easier to downhill with him. We spent many vacation years traveling to visit family—to the cottage in the Laurentians and to Denmark where Soren was from. Soren still teaches at UBC and has decided to stay on past normal retirement age for a couple more years. I have recently left my position at Mountain Equipment Co-op where I had worked first as a consultant on IT projects and then as an employee managing software development. It’s been a big change from working lots of hours. I am slowly getting into renovations, volunteering, more walking and re-connecting with some old friends.
Callaghan Valley, Whistler Olympic Park. Feb 16, 2009
Danish relatives and me
Whistler - top of Peak with Danish relatives, Feb 18, 2009
L to R: Peter (our son), Danish relatives (3), Soren, Jorgen (cousin), and me
A hello to all who read this,
Patsy