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 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

We enjoyed a visit from Falconry UK recently, which enabled us to get really close to some of these amazing birds, as well as seeing some really rare species.

Visiting Falcons

Some of our ladies and gents have decided to form their own knitting club.

They are really enjoying creating lots of different designs, as well as lending a hand to their fellow knitting friends when they need it.

A musical recital from Charlotte and Emma, clarinet duo from Wiltshire Rural Music ensured a really special day for one of our residents who was also celebrating their birthday.

Wiltshire Rural Music Concert

River View has decided to plan holidays this year on our virtual cruise ship.

Every week the SS River View will stop at a new port, and this week our first stop was the Caribbean. We decorated our home and staff

dressed in brightly coloured holiday dresses.

Virtual Cruise Ship – Caribbean

Inspired by Oomph "Inspire Your Heart with Art" during the arts and craft activities the past month, the residents painted and decorated wooden hearts. These hearts were then hung on all doors throughout the home on Valentines Day, which were appreciated by all residents.

Valentine's Day at Cedar Court

We were kindly donated by our local Co-op supermarket various bouquets. This gave us the opportunity of undertaking a flower arranging activity. The residents selected the flowers they wanted to use and created some beautiful arrangements. All who p

Thank you Co-Op

We would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to our local Tesco store who called to the home to deliver some fruit to the people living at the home. They were really happy to be thought of and get the gift, so huge thank you again from Anu and the team and Kents Hill.

Thank you Tesco

We love to play some games at Kents Hill and this afternoon we played one of our favourites... bean bag toss which was very much enjoyed. There was great fun had trying to get the top score too.

Afternoon Games

Yesterday afternoon at Ashfield Court we played bingo with lovely chocolate prizes!

This morning we did a brain teaser quiz, which the residents really enjoyed 😊After, we had lovely cakes and tea perfect for a wet and windy morning.....

Brain Teaser Quiz

The weather is wet and windy outside but we had a great morning with our pamper session. To start with all of the residents picked a pulse point they wanted to use which was there's to keep after we had foot spas with peppermint ! Then we talked about positive wellbeing and relaxation.

Our Brunch club is a great hit with the people living with us.

Saturday mornings in the home we get together indulge in some snacks served with tea/coffee.

There is also a variety of puzzles on hand as we know it's great to keep minds active.

Brunch Club at Buckingham House

It's smiles all round when we have freshly baked brownies to compliment our afternoon tea.

Brownies and Afternoon Tea

We now have an amazing Fish Tank where the residents feed the fish every morning. They are watching the fish grow and each month we have a different display in the tank.

Fish at The Hawthorns

We had fun today getting out our parachute to end our armchair exercise class. These parachutes can provide a non competitive way to to exercise whilst developing social skills such as sharing and turn taking. It also also develops hand eye coordination ,balance and mobility.

Armchair Exercise

22222 (22nd of February 2022) A DAY TO REMEMBER.

A Day To Remember 22.02.2022

Christine was deep in concentration when working on her contribution to the animal collage.

Contribution To The Animal Collage

Love is in the air....and we were celebrating it at Allingham House! What a fantastic week the residents had, enjoying the many different activities that we planned to celebrate the most romantic day of the year.

Allingham House Valentine's Celebrations

Our residents were greeted by a little pup called Luna. Our resident's got to pet Luna, play fetch and give the pup treats. The residents were really happy and enjoyed the company.

Visit From Luna

Our residents enjoyed bingo last week and finished the afternoon off with a couple of games of charades.

Bingo and Charades

Our lovely residents spent their morning having a nice cup of tea while having some fun with the animal shaped sewing boards.

Animal Shaped Sewing Boards

The lovely Bluebirds came into the home to sing for us, the residents were so pleased to see them in the home and they all enjoyed their performances, the alcohol went down very well!

Bluebirds Performance

We had an afternoon of Valentine's crafts, we painted small terracotta pots and decorated them. The residents who joined in really enjoyed the activity, they said it was very therapeutic and looked lovely on the dinning room tables.

Valentine's Crafts

We had a great day playing games, snakes and ladders, brick tower, tiddlywinks plus more. Our residents enjoyed all the different games played.

This afternoon we had a relaxing mindful jigsaw puzzle session, we did this in a very small group in a quiet area. It is a simple but effective activity that allows the brain to focus. It is also a great way to work together and bond as a group.

At Hope Green we care about the lives our residents have lived before we meet them and we enjoy spending time exploring memories that are important to them.

Howgate are making staff champions in categories each morning, this includes; Chart champion, Hydration Champion and Communication Champion to name a few, these are being delegated during each handover to empower the staff.

Staff Champions at Howgate

We have started a new Daily Exercise Class at The Hawthorns. The residents did an amazing job following the exercises using their arms and legs. They paused when they needed to and encouraged each other throughout. A massive round of applause was given by everyone after!

Daily Exercise Class

Love is sharing the simple things in life, helping one another with the smallest of tasks can often be the greatest of gestures. Cecil and Myra shared a lovely valentines day lunch. I loved listening to them reminisce about their roller skating days together.

Valentine's Day Lunch and Memories

Mollie planted some cress earlier in the month and left some little pots growing on the window sills, she was pleasantly surprised to see just how much it had grown in such a short space of time.