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.

Residents helped make colourful Mardi Gras shakers from empty Pringles tubes, cardboard rolls and paper towel tubes. They were decorated with free wallpaper samples, coloured feathers, flowers, butterflies and beads. They were then filled with dried rice.

Mardi Gras Decorations

Faye is making the most of this glorious weather, she loves gardening and has done a great job weeding the flower beds today. She said she was in her element, and as her next job she would like to paint the roof white.

Faye's Gardening

The backdrop was created by activities coordinator Marianne, residents helped to put up the balloons and decorations. The cake was made by one of our carers in the company colours. Marianne decorated it with a Mardi Gras Mask, feathers, flowers, butterflies and baubles.

Amber Court's Preparations

Great performance from our entertainers today, Al and Ian from Music In Mind did themselves proud with their 60s and 70s songs. The residents sang along and enjoyed the afternoon.

Alexandra Court's Entertainment

The residents at Mary Chapman had a treat with a visit from Elvis. He didn't disappoint (especially the ladies!) as he sang and danced his way through an hour of Rock n Roll and of course Elvis songs!

Hope Green have some new arrivals in their garden and they include two lovely yellow ducks! One of our residents families has been delivering new ornaments for our garden and each week there is a new surprise. They have included a panda and a monkey!

This afternoon our residents enjoyed a game of bingo.

Margaret helped to paint and decorate Mardi Gras Masks for the party.

Mardi Gras Masks

We have been enjoying time spent outside today at Troutbeck. The chess set is set up in the beautiful courtyard ready for the next players to see if they can win.

During this week of 7th-13th June, the nation celebrates Carers Week. There are currently around 6.5 million* carers in the UK, looking after their children, parents, siblings, partners, family, friends and even neighbours.

Expressing our gratitude to unpaid carers through the UK

England, Scotland and Wales all saw their warmest days of the year on Wednesday 2nd June.

The sun was out in its full splendour and so were the Knights Court residents! Our residents enjoyed engaging in numerous different outdoor activities this week including lawn bowls.

Our beautiful garden was filled with song and dance as we held an early D-Day celebration along with a special performance from the D-Day Dollies. We had so much fun welcoming back live entertainment to our home!.

The D-Day Dollies mini concert.

Although many public spaces have now started reopening again including museums, we are still unable to visit in large groups, so we decided to celebrate International Museum Day by bringing the museum into Abingdon.

International Museum Day

This Sunday, 6 June will mark the 77th anniversary of the D-Day offensive in Normandy.

Celebrating D-Day 2021

After a fun pub style quiz we enjoyed a crisp and dip tasting session. Everyone had a different favourite with the onion rings proving to be particularly popular.

Crisp and Dip Tasting Session

One of our residents is lucky to have a talented artist as her husband. Her walls are always filled with beautiful reminders of one another and her face always lights up whenever a new one arrives.

Artwork From Husband

What a perfect day to celebrate national milkshake day by making our own in the sunshine.

National Milkshake Day

What an amazing event!!

Hope Green were treated to a morning of toe tapping and hand clapping music from a local accordion entertainer and it was a roaring success. Residents and staff couldn't resist getting involved and were even up dancing which was wonderful to be a part of.

Accordion Entertainer

Blue and Muffin are beautiful pets who live at Deepdene. They bring so much pleasure to everyone who lives and works at Deepdene, especially when they choose to join in with the activities.

Blue and Muffin

Andy T is back! Andy has been entertaining all those who live and work at Brunel House for the last 6 years. We used to enjoy his company regularly as he was so popular and we are all so happy he is now back. The reaction when he arrived said it all.

Andy T Is Back!

25th May was Africa Day and we celebrated in style. From traditional costumes and food, to dancing, games and African music. We had a great time.

Afternoon garden games for all, complete with ice creams, lemonade, music and laughter. Judith is getting ready for Wimbledon.

As things are getting back to normal we have restarted the activities and visits that we always used to enjoy. The first trip out was lunch at our local pub. It was long overdue and a joy to be outside in the lovely weather. John and Janna cannot wait for the next outing.

The residents and the staff joined together to celebrate 'Time For A Cuppa' last week, a fundraising event to raise money for Dementia UK and support families facing Dementia.

Time For A Cuppa

Bowerfield House Bake Off

We were waiting for a special day here at Clarendon, an outside cabaret with one of our most popular artiste. The stage was set up and the chairs was arranged. Once the show began Robert didn't disappoint, treating us to a superb afternoon of entertainment our residents really enjoyed.

Outside Cabaret

Today we did arm chair travel and our residents went to the beach! We did a virtual tour of Cromer, Sheringham and Southwold, built sand castles, made our very own beach sandals, played beach volleyball, had chance to feel a range of interesting beach shells and paint our own sea side postcard.

Arm Chair Travel to The Beach

For World Bee Day we enjoyed a range of different crafts here at Bowerfield Court. We painted little wooden bumble bees which we made into badges, made pom pom bees and painted bee feeders.

Annually, on the 12th of May the anniversary of Florence Nightingale's birth, we celebrate International Nurses Day. A global event that acknowledges and praises the commitment and bravery of nurses around the world.

International Nurses Day Celebrations!

Who doesn't enjoy singing and dancing? Well, our residents were kept entertained by the lovely Sam Jones as she sang their favourite songs to which the residents danced and sung along to. She certainly got the party started.

Sam Jones's Entertainment

Our residents enjoyed a pork pie and pate tasting session this afternoon. It was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

Pork Pie and Pate Tasting Session

Today at Manorhey we tried different chocolates as part of our tasting session. We had to see what flavours we could taste, if we recognise the chocolate bar and if we enjoyed the taste of that particular bar.

Chocolate Tasting

Following on from our circus animal trolley, we discussed how to make more cages and the residents suggested making them from boxes for the gorillas, they then discussed what colour to paint them and decided on a lighter colour so the gorillas stood out more, they were really pleased with the res

Our residents have really enjoyed making things for our carnival, the theme being circus. Amongst the things we have made were a tin can alley where residents painted cans and the backdrop to the game.

Our residents made gift bags for the carnival and paper flowers to make garlands for everyone that wanted one to wear around their necks.

Carnival Preparations

Our residents spent time talking about our carnival party and enjoyed planning and prepping lots of different activities, we spent quite some time making the signs and cage for our trolley to hold the circus animals. Everyone was really pleased with the outcome.

This week we have had a group reminiscence workshop for dementia action week. We have looked at old photos, listened to music from the 40s and 50s and had an old time music hall sing a long. Here is our Betty sharing one of the pictures we have talked about.

Group Reminiscence Workshop

Bowerfield Court enjoyed a Queen themed party this month. Staff dressed for a gig/festival and each resident was given their very own concert lanyard.

We Will Rock You!

Mythical fact about the month of May: The month of May was named for the Greek goddess Maia, who was the goddess of fertility. Maia was one of the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the Oceanid Pleione. She was also known as the Goddesses “Bona Dea” or Good Goddess.

Hope Green staff and residents were hoping for sunnier weather to spend time in the garden with their gardening project, but we had a change of plan with a morning of games which brought equal pleasure.

This week, residents enjoyed painting and using watercolours and the art easels. They had fun creating their masterpieces. Well done guys.

On 'International Tea Day' we tried lots of different teas from around the world, some nice, some not so nice, but at least we could give a name of a tea to the taste.

International Tea Day

Leonard, Owen and Joan out in the sunshine today. Listening, singing and joining in with the dance moves with our lovely Kerry who came to sing for us today. Our residents enjoyed the sing-a-long and to keep cool we had an ice lolly to finish off the afternoon.

The smiles were back for the return of Andy T .

Andy has been entertaining the residents and staff of Brunel House for the last 6 years. He's so popular her used to visit once a month.

The return of Andy T

Our regular tea time quiz is getting very competitive. The three teams, the Wise Quacks, Agatha Quiztie and Les Quizerables went head to head with The Wise Quacks coming out on top, this time.

It's not just our families and friends that we like to check in on. Sometimes we like to catch up and have a little bit of time with our pets who love us unconditionally.

We held a 'life style day' for our residents, which means brushing, folding laundry, dusting or knitting, after discussion the general feeling was to have a knitting day. Some great results and hard concentration. An enjoyable activity that everyone who took part enjoyed.

At Bowerfield House we have been very busy in the kitchen, we have baked cupcakes and decorated them. We all enjoyed eating them with a nice pot of tea and a good chat.