Our stories

Peace of mind

Moving into a care home made easy

Our care team are here to make sure that making the move is as easy as possible for you and your loved one. If you still need reassurance, here are some stories from our residents, their families and our care team.

The weather might be cold, wet and windy outside but our Gardening Club at Hope Green continues by 'bringing the outside in'. We care about connecting to nature, and providing our residents the opportunity to get involved whatever the weather and whatever the season.

Hope Green's Gardening Club

We just love baking at Troutbeck Care Home, we chatted about the baking we have done with our families and how children also love baking.

At Hope Green women gathered together to chat, eat chocolate, walk in the spring sunshine, listen to music and read. The sunshine shone through the windows and there was a real air of hope and togetherness.

International Women's Day 2022

We had a lovely pamper session yesterday. So many of our lovely ladies had their nails painted, trimmed and filed. They had a great time chatting like we were all in a salon and admiring everyone's colour choice.

Pamper Session at The Hawthorns

We decided to be creative and innovative choosing a theme, and we chose, Around the World in Chip Butties.

Around The World in Chip Butties

We love to listen to the people who live with us at Kents Hill so when David told us he wanted to surprise his wife Lynne on their 26th wedding anniversary with a card he has made himself, our Lifestyle Team couldn't wait to help him.

Anniversary Card

In preparation for the return of the church services Michael used his connections in the local community. He spoke with his contact Alan from the "Men In Sheds", Alan was a former Cedar Court volunteer and NAPA volunteer of the year, who to part in a group "Men in Sheds" .

Church Service at Cedar Court

We have been working over the last few weeks on our Tree of Knowledge. During recent activities we have discussed and spoke to the residents asking them to offer any words of wisdom. We also approached the community i

Tree of Knowledge

The traditional Pancake Day marks the beginning of March and one of the sweetest traditions during this time of the year. Our residents joined the celebrations having delicious pancakes, served with all sort of toppings.

Pancake Day at Allingham

In the home this morning we had fun baking cookies, in the afternoon we then decorated them. This was an enjoyable activity for all those who attended.

Last week we celebrated St David's Day. Recognised annually since the 12th century. Our residents sketched a portrait of daffodils, whilst listening the welsh singing legend Tom Jones.

St David's Day at Carmel Lodge

It was world book day and the team at Buckingham House couldn’t wait to celebrate with their Mad Hatters Tea Party. Their dining room transformed into a wonderland with their table decorations, cake stands and dress up options. The cakes and cookies looked amazing an

The residents have been busy for the past few weeks creating their entry for the MMCG flag making competition. After a meeting the consensus was the company value most identified with was caring .After much discussion and idea sharing we finally chose the idea of hand prints.

Flag Making Competition

The staff and residents of Clarendon Court have gone wild for World Wildlife Day, dressing as their favourite wild animal and learning a little more about them. Some very interesting facts, all helped along with our wildlife cakes baked by our very own Maria.

World Wildlife Day

We celebrated pancake day with delicious home made pancakes, served with our favourite toppings, golden syrup was by far the top of the list followed by lemon and a sprinkle of sugar, all served with fresh fruit and cream, we chatted about the significance of Pancake day and what it actually mean

Pancake Day at Troutbeck

To celebrate employee appreciation day 2022 our home manager Neil Hooley treated all staff to Krispy Kreme donuts.

Employee Appreciation Day

Jessica Dennington, Mihaela Laza and Charlotte Littlemore were all presented with a lovely gift and keepsakes that they will be able to treasure.

What an achievement well done ladies!

Achievements at Mary Chapman

One of our favourite and most popular events here at Abingdon Court is our cookery sessions!

We load our trolley with all of our ingredients, along with our trusty portable oven and gather to collectively create a selection of cakes.

The traditional annual Pancake Race at Brunel House, enjoyed by everyone!

Pancake Celebrations

To celebrate St David’s Day we spent a very busy morning making Welsh Cakes/Cacennau Gri.

Whilst we mixed and rolled the cake mix, we enjoyed listening to some of our favourite Welsh artists; Tom Jones, Bryn Terfel and The 3 Welsh Tenors.

And yes, they were delicious.

St David’s Day

Some of the people living with us here at Brunel recently enjoyed a fun day in the company of 10 year old Ophelia, the daughter of one of our team members.

They played board games, musical games, did some arts and crafts and even had time for a spot of gardening.

Ophelia’s Vist

We had a lovely morning writing letters to our fellow Care Homes.

To celebrate National Pizza Day we made Pizzas for our evening meal from scratch. We made our pizza dough before lunch allowing it time to rest, we had talked about toppings with our residents ands whilst the pizza was resting we prepared our toppings and pizza sauce.

National Pizza Day

Twiddle muffs can be a great way to provide a simple sensory activity. The different textures allow restless hands to explore and seek stimulation and comfort.

We had so much fun making our own favourite pancakes last week. The residents enjoyed eating their delicious creations. They talked about it over lunch which tempted a few more residents to make one of their own for pudding.

Pancake Day at The Hawthorns!

At Hope Green we care about connecting with cultural experiences for fun, positivity, and friendship.

Carnival Of Brazil at Hope Green

Bowerfield House had a great last month, we had a coffee and music morning - latte and coffee on the go- cake, crisps and some marshmallow biscuits which all went down a treat.

Coffee and Music Morning

Drum roll please ... and the winner of the name the famous face and tune is Christine, although it was a pretty close call.

Name The Famous Face

We had Valentine's Celebrations for our lovely couple here in the home, Trevor and Justine, we had special decorations, chocolates and a lovely meal with valentines cake to finish. We also had Roger who came to sing for us, all the residents loved the day!

Valentine's Day at Alexandra Court

What a fantastic turn out for our Drive Through Coffee and Cake, the chef had been very busy making fairy cakes iced with an edible butterfly. During few weeks we have been out to visit the local businesses, shops and emergency services inviting them to the Drive Through.

Drive Through at Deepdene

The people who live at Kents Hill have really been enjoying their cookie decorating session at the home and so have the team that have been supporting them. There were some really lovely patterns made and of course everyone got to enjoy one with a lovely cup of tea after.

Cookie Decorating

It is without a shadow of a doubt that all that live here at Abingdon Court have such fantastic life stories to share, and many find comfort from reminiscing about these times.

A Picture Speaks A Thousand Words

It's smiles all around with our Oomph sessions, and we're always trying to introduce new and fun ways to keep the sessions fresh and exciting - our new prop this week came in the form of ribbons on a stick!

Puppet on a Striiiiiiiiing

Earlier in the week we celebrated St David's Day. We made Daffodils using green straws and yellow tissues. We talked about holidays to Wales and our favourite places to visit there. We had a giggle at attempting to say the very long name in Welsh.

St David's Day at The Hawthorns

Our residents enjoyed pancake day this week and tucked into a nice pancake topping of their choice.

Pancake Day at Water Royd

We have started to donate to Ukraine, both the staff and the residents wanted to participate in this donation. The residents wanted to donate because they saw the newspaper article from the local Norwich, West Earlham Polish Community, and also on the TV.

Donation to Ukraine

Karen, one of our lovely Lifestyles Co-ordinators visiting Resurrected Bites to deliver some food donations for their community cafe in Knaresborough and receiving these gorgeous daffodils for our residents. Thank you so much.

Residents are choosing books to read from a selection brought in for National Book day. On World Book Day, every child in full-time education in the UK is given a voucher to be spent on books; the event was first celebrated in the United Kingdom in 1995.

A lovely sunny day for our pancake race, staff were feeling competitive and raring to go. With residents joining in too for a walking race and spectating, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. We care about having fun and taking the opportunity to laugh with friends.

The residents really enjoyed tucking into some pancakes, some choosing the traditional sugar and lemon toppings, while some indulged in some cream, marshmallows and chocolate sprinkles. A really tasty treat! We care about trying different foods and treating ourselves.

Pancake Tasting

We had a lovely afternoon yesterday celebrating with one of our residents, Emily, a big happy birthday to you 😊😊😊💕

Emily's Birthday

This afternoon we celebrated Chopin's Birthday! We listened to some very powerful classical music with Drinks and Nibbles, a great afternoon had by all ! 😊😊

Chopin's Birthday Afternoon

We celebrated Valentines day at the home and our residents had a lovely time. First we designed our table mats which we printed off and laminated ready to set the tables, we then made valentines day cards for all of our residents which Doreen and I delivered in the morning.

Valentine's Day at The Belvedere

This week in arts and craft the residents continued to produce some great work. Using a template of a ballerina (to form a silhouette) and blending coloured paint onto canvass they created some wonderful painting which they were extremely proud of. Attached are

Ballerina Painting

As part of the St David's Day celebrations we had a concert by Mary Gorniak who visited and played for us some Welsh inspired music on her flute and piccolo. Everybody in attendance enjoyed the performance very much and had a wonderful afternoon.

St Davids Day Celebrations

World Book Day is coming to Buckingham House and we are getting props ready it. Our theme is Alice in Wonderland and so we are getting our mad hatters, Alice bands and rabbit ears at the ready.

World Book Day Preparation

The pancake has a very long history and featured in cookery books as far back as 1439 and in that time that has been very different varieties and styles. At Kents Hill we had some of those varieties and also lots of different toppings to go on top too.

Pancake Day at Kents Hill

We celebrated opening of our newly decorated hair salon with a glass of Prosecco for all of our customers.

Carol one of our Senior Carers and Chantal Kennedy, the hairdresser can be seen popping the cork.

Salon Re-fresh at Pinewood

At Ashfield Court we celebrated Shove Tuesday and St David's Day! This morning we had some lovely cake and had a 'talk about the history of shove Tuesday!' Then at lunch time the lovely Celia tossed a pancake up in the air 20 times!

Pancake Day at Ashfield Court

Residents and staff have joined this week to the celebrations of LGTB+ History Month. We started the week, playing a Quiz, exploring and learning a little bit more about important members of the community that have a close relationship with Manchester like Alan Turin.

LGBT+ History Month