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.

We were delighted when Musical Memories joined us for a 50's show in the garden in April. It was a lovely day and some of our residents enjoyed a dance in the court yard as Michaela sang to us. We had such a wonderful afternoon and can't wait to do it again.

For VE Day in The Lodge, we have been making a display to commemorate all of the soldiers coming home to their families. Today we have had a coffee morning while we reminisced on photo's of street parties, Winston Churchill, newspaper clippings and soldiers being merry.

The residents at The Westbourne celebrated VE Day listening and singing along told old time war songs such as we'll meet again and white cliffs of Dover. Everyone had flags to wave. Some residents had flags or stripes painted on their faces to mark the occasion.

VE Day at The Westbourne

White Rose Lodge would like to say a huge thank you to Reverend Maxine and The Priory for their lovely donation of handmade goods and cream eggs for our residents here. The residents are very thankful and love hearing from Reverend Maxine.

Thank You Reverend Maxine and The Priory

Everyone at White Rose Lodge would like to say a huge thank you to Tesco for their generous donation of hand sanitiser. It will be a great help for us in preventing the spread of coronavirus and keeping Covid at bay.

Tesco's Donation

We had a fabulous day celebrating Muriel's 103rd Birthday in April. We are so pleased to have been able to be part of this amazing day with the most amazing lady. We had cake and a little tea party and Muriel received lots of presents and had such a lovely day.

Muriel's 103rd Birthday

We always enjoy our themed nights at Skell Lodge and this week our residents requested to have Indian Cuisine.

Indian Cuisine at Skell Lodge

Our younger person unit at Minster Grange is our Aspen Unit and as the weather hasn't been terrific so far we thought we'd give our lounge a facelift and we wanted to show you all. We hope you like it as much as we do.

Aspen Unit Lounge Makeover

We are loving getting out again in the garden during the sunny weather and starting to plant our flowers. Here at The Moors we have extensive gardens and our residents love picking the flowers and potting them in the flower beds.

Gardening at The Moors

It was a very busy day today at The Moors. We recreated Salvador Dali's watch out of clay and the Queen was entering the Parliament. Some of our Ladies had their hair done for this special day. In the afternoon we was strolling around in the Salvador Dali Museum, of course virtually.

A Busy Day At The Moors

We decided not to wait until National Donut Day to have a sweet treat. Our residents tried some new flavours whilst reminiscing about the traditional jam and sugar donuts from their childhood.

Donuts At Carmel Lodge

Ahead of Chelsea Flower Show next week, some of our residents had fun creating their own artificial arrangements.

Artificial Flower Arranging

The residents enjoyed a very special Happy Hour last Friday to celebrate VE Day. We decorated the Allingham Arms with Union Jack flag bunting and the residents could enjoy their favourite drinks, singing and dancing a selection of The Greatest Hits from the 30s and 40s.

Happy Hour at Allingham Arms

It was a wonderful atmosphere at Hope Green on Saturday as we remembered VE Day together. Reminiscing about street parties, and waving flags and pom poms with a great singalong made for a fantastic time.

VE Day at Hope Green

What a fantastic day we had at Bowerfield House. We celebrated VE Day with a quiz which Pat, Barry and Ellie won. They loved their prizes. Ellie won a bottle of wine and Barry and Pat won a pair of socks. We all enjoyed the entertainment, we had a singer on zoom.

VE Day at Bowerfield House

We had an entertainer in to sing for us last week, he sang from the pod and everyone had a wonderful time. We've never had so many dancers on the floor and needless to say, everyone slept well that night, including the staff.

Acorn's Entertainment

May is Stroke Awareness Month and everyone at Bowerfield Court is helping to raise both money and awareness. We have made purple ribbons for both residents and staff to wear, along with displaying large ribbons in our lobby and on each floor of our home.

Stroke Awareness Month

This afternoon we had a fruit tasting activity, not all of our residents are able to enjoy solid fruits, however we had a delicious alternative with this mixed fruit syllabub.

Fruit Tasting Activity

Today we enjoyed happy hour with our friends of the home, with music, wine and some favourite snacks. We had a little dance too, just what we needed for a Friday afternoon.

Today at Manorhey we enjoyed a performance from one of our favourite entertainers. She had everyone dancing away the whole way through. She definitely brought a smile to our faces.

Manorhey Entertainment

Joan, Rosemary and Dorothy, our fab girls Sarah and Gina, the Bluebird entertainment sang for us to celebrate VE Day. The residents really enjoyed singing along with the English favourite songs.

We had a lovely surprise today at Belmont House, our local charity Resurrected Bites dropped by with some beautiful flowers for our resident - such lovely colours, we will be doing some beautiful arrangements with the help of our residents for their rooms.

Resurrected Bites

The creativity and artistic talents of the people who live at Cedar Court continues to amaze us all. This person who created this beautiful piece lives with dementia.

Artwork at Cedar Court

We spent the morning arranging flowers to put around our home. We chose sunflowers and some lovely purple, pink and white flowers to brighten up our day. A very lovely and relaxing activity to do especially whilst listening to Jazz music.

Flower Arranging

We would like to thank one of our nurses Jeff who's dad breeds budges and let us have 2 for our home. Two new welcome additions to our family at Bowerfield House. Introducing The Royals Elizabeth and Phillip, we are all excited about the new arrivals and our residents love watching them.

Today we celebrated National Nurses Day with a range of activities. It was lovely to see the joy on the residents' faces after our poetry reading and pride in their own handiwork, whether that was colouring in, puzzle solving or writing and thanking a nurse they know.

National Nurses Day

The residents enjoyed last Friday, a garden party to celebrate St George's Day. The garden was decorated with buntings and England flags and Samantha Jones, one of our regular singers, performed for the residents a selection of English greatest hits.

St George's Day

We are over the moon about our Easter competition win! Hope Green residents and staff not only had a great time over the Easter weekend celebrations but now also get the chance to celebrate again with a lovely prize of a Sharing Hamper and a certificate.

Easter Competition Win

We finished off our 'Earth' themed month with a trip around the world. We paired up flags and capital cities with their respective countries and them looked for those countries on our inflatable globe.

Trip Around The World

We held an international jazz day on Friday and played some great jazz music and indulged in producing art, whether it was jazz related or just paint from the heart in the ambiance of the music. One of our residents excelled and really enjoyed producing a piece that any artist would be proud of.

International Jazz Day

Bank holiday Monday was our May Day Fair, lots of standard fairground games like Roll-a-coin, spin the wheel, disc drop, play your cards right and darts. Lots of prizes, lots of fun and most of all laughter and smiling faces. A good turnout supported by residents and staff alike.

Our residents had lots of fun making and decorating cupcakes. They particularly enjoyed tasting them afterwards.

Today our residents dined gastro pub style. one of the options was this delicious traditional toad in the hole served on a bed of bubble and squeak.

Gastro Pub Style Food

Bowerfield House has enjoyed a little artwork today. Our Willy Wonka tree is very special and unique, our buttons are made from sugar paste and stuck on with icing. This is so very safe if eaten and if you have a sweet tooth you can have a little nibble too.

Willy Wonka Tree

Some of our residents have been treated to manicures, aromatherapy and hot cloth facials.

A few weeks ago the Bowerfield House team spent an afternoon contacting local bus stations to see if there was any old bus stop signage they could use to create a bus stop in Bowerfield House.

Bowerfield House's Bus Stop

We have a very special addition to our flower collection here at Troutbeck Care Home. A double headed miniature daffodil grown by Muriel Allen. This one has put a smile on everyone's face.

Double Headed Miniature Daffodil

We thought we would make it a special day as it is one of the big events of the year. All residents chose a name out of a hat and got a horse to win on. We were all very excited at the prospect of watching the race and we enjoyed food, wine and beer.

Washing and drying the pots is one of our residents favourite things to do, they especially enjoy it as they don't get chance to do house work. It gives them a sense of self work and they thoroughly enjoy it and working as a team. We also listened to music and sang as we worked.

One of our residents wanted to go for a walk and look around. We got wrapped up as it was a little chilly and off we went for some fresh air and to stretch our legs. We walked along the path and came upon a bridge where we could feed the ducks and enjoy the sunshine.

Walk By The River

To celebrate National Textiles Day the residents added their own designs to a new blanket. The residents tried to thread the needle independently, sometimes needed a little assistance. They then began to move the needle through the weaves of wool and started up their own design.

National Textiles Day

We've had an amazing day, we had the Oscars at The Hawthorns. Kate, our activities coordinator has been absolutely amazing, she even made a short film for the residents to watch.

Oscars at The Hawthorns

Superhero Day is here to remind people that superheroes can come in any age, shape or size and being one is more about valour of the heart than having actual super-powers. Everyone who works and lives at Parkview is a superhero and there are even photos to prove it.

Chef Joey put on a BBQ for residents and staff and included her famous macaroons for dessert, plus we had a visit from Jim and his ice cream van. Marianne provided the musical entertainment and fun was had in the sunshine.

Fun in The Sun at Amber Court

Residents got together to create lovely bunting for our farewell party for our resident Jeanette who is retiring. They made a lovely contribution and was very pleased with the outcome. Well done guys!

Farewell Bunting

Today we built and decorated bird feeders to hang in the garden. We enjoyed using paints and getting messy and we can't wait to see the birds eating from the feeders!

Bird Feeder Decorating

Jimmy joined us for our gardening club and enjoyed planting corn and tomato seeds in pots, then we planted flower seeds in the garden.

Our residents at The Westbourne enjoyed themselves by decorating wooden bird houses with a selection of paints for them to choose from. As they painted, they talked about the colours, using associations such as yellow reminding them of the sunshine.

Bird House Decorating

Residents enjoyed some exercises today that were chair based. They sat in a small group and followed our activities staff member. They said they felt fit and well and roaring with energy.

Chair Based Exercise

What a fab day we had making these scones. We had lots of fun and the residents really enjoyed getting hands on. We all enjoyed eating them with jam and lots of yummy clotted cream and washed down with a pot of tea, and a good natter about all the naughty foods.