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.

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.

Games afternoon started with Bingo, Cards and Domino's. Mona, Dorothy and Owen enjoyed the games afternoon, they had a lovely tea and cake break.

Games Afternoon

Our most requested activity are music and quizzes.

Who Wants To Be A Millionaire

This week we brought a splash of colour into the lives of the Knights Court residents. We took out our colouring pencils and colouring sheets kindly donated to us by Morrison’s and threw ourselves into to this life enhancing activity.

Face painting for our Rio Carnival Day. We had a fabulous day starting with face painting the staff and residents, Yvonne, Leonard, Nicola and then the head dresses.

Some of the pictures of the Rio Carnival, getting ready for the afternoon. Cocktails were served, Strawberry Daiquiri and Pimms, lemonade and fruit juices. Our carnival table preparations in the dining room and the conservatory ready for the fabulous buffet.

Today we made salt dough and had great fun making shapes and kneading the dough. This is great for circulation and exercising the hands and fingers and can also be a cause for much laughter.

Our activities theme for the month of May is 'All About Me' so we spent time during this Dementia Awareness Week reminiscing and listening to old familiar songs. We also painted forget-me-not flowers that represent remembrance and are long-associated with dementia.

Dementia Awareness Week

At Hope Green we've really started to get creative and this week has been no exception. One of our residents has a particular flair for painting and even has her own work displayed in her room.

Arts and Crafts

Smiles smiles smiles at Hope Green as our hairdresser has returned after many months! What a difference a day makes, and what a difference a hair cut makes too! Our hairdressing salon was extremely busy as many residents chose to visit and get themselves treated to a long awaited hair treatment.

Hope Green's Hairdresser

Continuing with our fundraising for the Stroke Association we held a purple day here at Bowerfield Court. Everyone wore a purple ribbon and enjoyed the variety of purple sweets and cupcakes that were on offer.

Stroke Association Fundraising

We love to keep active at Hope Green and Balloon Tennis is one of our favourite games to enjoy together. With music on in the background too we find ourselves singing whilst playing.

Residents have been busy making colourful shakers and masquerade masks for our Mardi Gras themed party scheduled for the 26th of May. The carnival shakers were made from loo roll, paper towel and Pringle tubes.

Mardi Gras Party Preparations

Bowerfield House has enjoyed a beach day today while listening to the Cliff Richard song Summer Holidays. Carers Vicky and Joan waited at our new bus stop for the bus to take them to the beach. Our residents enjoyed touching the sand and feeling it between their toes and touching the shells.

Parkview House promoted World Hand Hygiene Day recently with the people who live and work at the home.

World Hand Hygiene Day

Everyone who lives and works at Princess Lodge celebrated International Nurses Day with style with gifts and pizza. It was a day to thank all of the amazing nurses, not just at Princess Lodge but across the world for their continued support, dedication and kindness.

International Nurses Day

With International Nurses Day falling in the same week as Mental Health Awareness Week, we have everyone's mental health in our hearts. We have touched base with everyone to ask 'How are you?'. We also handed out lots of little sweet treats to remind everyone - 'YOU ARE NOT ALONE'.

International Nurses Day and Mental Health Week

Outdoors or indoors, there is always time to enjoy a spot of gardening. We plant and grow everything from bright flowers to green ferns.

Gardening at Parkview

Riverview are excited to announce that they were runners up in a competition to find the best Care Home in Reading. The competition was organised by Dunelm who invited the community to vote for the best home.

River Views Award

We have another great artist among our residents - Hilda (also known as Babs) often draws in her room and recently her friend delivered some of her paintings to her that she has done over the years. I think you will agree she is amazing! We will proudly display her paintings around the home.

Artist Among Us

Our residents enjoyed a relaxing session of floral arranging, using miniature window boxes and adding artificial flowers then decorating them with ladybird stickers.

Flower Arranging

One of our residents celebrated their 89th birthday this month in style with a special cake and balloon.

Residents 89th Birthday

We had a pamper nail day here at Clarendon Court. It went down well, everybody loves a pamper.

This afternoon at Hope Green we enjoyed fish and chips from our local fish shop. Our residents really enjoyed this treat, others enjoyed the alternative of a sushi salad. A good afternoon had by all.

An energetic day here at Clarendon Court, balloon tennis was a popular event, throw a balloon into a room and see the reaction with lots of smiles. What a fun day had by our residents.

At Manorhey we celebrated Eid with one of our residents, she was really happy when she received the flowers from our home. Happy Eid to all our friends and family members. Eid Mubarak.

Eid Celebrations at Manorhey

Lovely one to one time with our residents. We invited residents to come along to our salon where they can have a pamper treat and some fizz. We did some nail trimming and filing with a fresh coat of nail polish and even did hot towel shaves which was thoroughly enjoyed by the men.

Pamper at Hope Green

We celebrated International Nurses Day with our nurses and residents. We appreciate all the hard work they put into our care and home. Thank you.

International Nurses Day at Manorhey

We held a pizza day and chef Debbie made pizzas from scratch. It was also Donna's birthday and here she is enjoying her pizza. Donna also had her makeup and nails done.

Birch Heath staff and residents were all sorry to see Jenna leaving and we wished her all the best in her new job. Jenna has been part of our team for 9 months and she will be greatly missed by staff and residents.

Jenna's Leaving Celebrations

As action for Brain Injury Week comes to an end residents and staff here at Bowerfield Court have donned their daftest hats to help raise awareness for those people whose lives have been affected by brain injury.

Hats For Headway

Bowerfield Court nurses very much use their voices to lead and residents and colleagues celebrated each and every one of them on International Nurses Day - Kirsty, Patrice, Michelle, Rowena, Tyapo, Michelle and Dilliyan.

Bowerfield Court's Nurses Day Celebrations

Celebrations today for International Nurses Day with a fantastic cake enjoyed by residents and staff. Thank you to our nurses and all our staff at Manorhey for making sure our residents are made to feel cared for and safe.

International Nurses Day at Manorhey

Abingdon Court celebrated the Oscars ceremony by watching a compilation of some of our favourite moments
in cinema – classics from My Fair Lady, Titanic, and A Streetcar Named Desire to name just a few. We were

A Week at The Oscars

Cinema has impacted the lives of many of us living here at Abingdon Court, and we all have fond memories of our favourite actresses and actors, old and new. We decided to have our own celebration in light of the 93rd Oscars Academy Awards.

Academy Award Arts & Crafts

This afternoon our residents have taken a step back in time reminiscing about their childhood trips to the sweet shop. It was very interesting to hear about the war time rations and learn about their favourite sweets whilst sampling new ones.

Some of our residents were treated to a relaxing hand massage with hot cloth heat therapy today, finished off with a pretty natural nail polish.

The residents enjoyed making salt dough today. The activity aids with flexibility in the hands and eases joint pain in the fingers. The ladies loved the activity.

We celebrated the Queen's birthday in style at the home with a royal quiz and afternoon tea. We enjoyed homemade cakes made by our chef and fresh cream cakes all which were yummy. We can't wait for the Queen's second birthday, Trooping the Colour in June.

Queen's Birthday Celebrations

We had a lovely day at the home celebrating VE Day and reminiscing about the stories we had heard and remembered ourselves during the Second World War. We had afternoon tea to celebrate the day and decorated the home and enjoyed music and quizzes.

VE Day at Willowdene

We have been doing our daily workout today which is Tai Chi and stretching exercises. We all look forward to this routine and it helps keep spirts up. Lots of fun in the morning.

A huge thank you to Margaret the community champion at Asda in Falkirk for this lovely hamper to us for the residents. We really do appreciate all Margaret has done for us during this difficult year.

Thank You Margaret

We had a lovely morning of crafts this morning. The wonderful books were donated by Funnybones Books, which is a company run by one of our residents daughters. She held a fundraising event and purchased the books to donate to the home. Thank you so much, we all loved them.

Today our new Magic Teapot room invited a few residents to enjoy High Tea. Everyone arrived to the music playing on the old fashioned record player. The fabulous cakes and beautiful China wowed everyone. The room was filled with laughter, smiles and chatter.

The Magic Teapot

Every Wednesday at Parksprings is Tai Chi with Morag on zoom, gentle exercises which can make a difference. Morag demonstrates the moves with gentle music and then the residents copy the moves.