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 had a lovely afternoon being entertained by Mike Wild as Elvis outside of the home in October. Our residents sat in the reception area of the home and Elvis performed for us in our patio garden. There was lots of singing and we enjoyed some fresh cream cakes and tea.

Elvis Performance

We have been making the most of the last of the sunshine in the garden in October and we had ice cream and a visit from the neighbours cat. Brenda enjoyed the feeling of grass on her feet. Fair well summer, hello to a new season with lots of fun planned.

October Sunshine

We celebrated National Mad Hatters Day in October with tea and cakes and made jam tarts the day before Mad Hatters Day. It was also Thomasina's 101st birthday so it was a double celebration at the home on 8th October for us.

Mad Hatters Day

The winter days are fast approaching and we haven’t been out in the gardens as much this month but that doesn’t stop us having fun in the home. We created our own table tennis table in the dining room and challenged each other to a competition. There were lots of laughter ringing out

We have received a lovely donation of fiddle muffs hand made by a local lady who kindly made us a variety of these for our home. Our residents loved them and we were so grateful for the donation.

Donation of Fiddle Muffs

Old Hallows Eve is fast approaching this month and as always the wonderful residents at Field View are getting prepared and making decorations to display around the home ready for our Halloween party. We have lots of spooky surprises in store.

Halloween Preparation at Field View

James, one of our residents at Earsdon Grange was over the moon when he walked his daughter down the aisle in October. He enjoyed spending the day at the wedding and came back to the home with lots of smiles and stories about the day. We think his daughter just looked absolutely beaut

We have had quite a few birthday celebrations in the home this month and Chef Moira never lets us down with her home baked cakes. We love home baking at the home and spend many an afternoon with Moira creating biscuits and cakes for coffee mornings at the home. We can’t wait to be abl

Cakes at Earsdon

The winter days are fast approaching and we haven’t been out in the gardens as much this month but that doesn’t stop us having fun in the home. Pat organised to have a dominoes competition in the coffee shop with residents and carers.

The people living and working at Woodlands care home went all out for Halloween. Not only were the traditional scary faces carved into the pumpkins there were glittery cats and spiders and some beautifully decorated smaller pumpkins and squashes.

A fantastic display.

Halloween at Woodlands

Cedar Court Care Home was honoured to host The Cranleigh Poppy Appeal launch on Monday 25th October. Trevor Cobby of the British Legion was in attendance together with Lance Corporal Tweddie-Smith and Private High from the Princess of Wales R

The Cranleigh Poppy Appeal

Sheila loved dressing Vicky our deputy manager up as a Mummy, she also told us to reuse the toilet paper as we may need it we are still in a pandemic after all.

Halloween Dress Up

Jean and Sue playing trick or treat at Carmel Lodge

As the days become cooler through Autumn our exercise routines continue with 'Rise & Shine' activities for everyone. Whether you enjoy the music, the movement, the percussion or the games it's always a joy to be involved in.

In preparation for our Halloween Party and to celebrate National Pumpkin Day, our talented staffs and residents started doing the giant pumpkin carving. Amber Court’s Resident did the sketching, then the staff doing the carving after. It is a team effort after all.

Pumpkin Carving at Amber Court

Residents and staff had a great time decorating our window in preparation for our Halloween party that we had on Friday. Residents really enjoyed our spooky celebrations.

Halloween Window Display at Cavendish

Always a welcome addition to the day, our residents love Cheese and Biscuits.

Cheese and Biscuits

Bowerfield House had a special visitor last week, our lovely and friendly scarecrow that we named Edward. All the residents loved our scarecrow and we proudly placed him outside at the main entrance to greet all of our visitors.

Bowerfield House's Scarecrow

When we announced that we will be having a Halloween party in Amber Court, our residents and staff were very excited for it. We started preparing for the event through organizing a small activity with the residents and staff by carving pumpkins and making decorations.

Amber Court's Halloween Preparation

Our residents made homemade lemonade last week. We squeezed fresh lemons and mixed the juice with water ice and sugar. We all really enjoyed this and they felt hydrated and refreshed.

Homemade Lemonade

We had lots of memories whilst sampling food and drink from the Agean . It was a lovely afternoon enjoyed by all.

Greek Afternoon

Here at Abbey View we really like to get into the Halloween spirit.

Halloween at Abbey View

We enjoyed decorating lanterns in lovely autumn colours to look like the leaves on the trees outside. Putting an electronic candle in them really made the colours pop!

Autumn Lanterns

Bowerfield House had a great day celebrating Halloween. We had a firework display and sparkles overseen by our maintenance man George, residents and staff watched from the conservatory.

Halloween Party

It's great to see friendships at Hope Green and it's always a joy to bring the men together to chat, play games, and eat lunch. Today we explored some new books too which we loved chatting about. Topics of particular interest were The Titanic and The Suffragettes!

Look how we turned these into a little mummy doll. Joan, one of our residents, really enjoyed doing this with her fellow residents and staff.

Artworks For Halloween

The people living at The Hawthorns decorated small pumpkins with a selection of flowers for a beautiful centre piece. They thoroughly enjoyed picking the flowers and placing them in the selected place. It was a lovely morning with everyone encouraging each other’s work, giggling and smiling.

Flower Power Pumpkins

We have been decorating around the home and Deepdene is very lucky to have staff team members with many skills like Adrian helping to put these beautiful vases on the flowers shop.

Decorating Deepdene

We are fortunate enough to have an ongoing relationship with 'Christchurch Abingdon'.

Christchurch Service

As Halloween approaches we started to make some Halloween fun crafts, like these beautiful little bats and pumpkins filled with sweets for our residents to enjoy.

Art and crafts at Deepdene

We had a lovely afternoon In Deepdene, enjoying an afternoon of a Halloween themed sing along with Helen .

Halloween Themed Sing Along

The people loving at Woodlands have been busy creating various items to decorate our lounge for the harvest season and Halloween. They have enjoyed using different techniques and textures and the results are fantastic.

Harvest Festival and Halloween

Tea and Cake day went down a treat! We enjoyed some lovely cakes with a cup of tea in our best china tea service. There was also some mindful colouring and a tea quiz to find out how much we know about the origin of tea itself.

Tea and Cake Day

There was some fantastic artistic flair exhibited at The Hawthorns. People living at the home used watercolours and painted objects from their rooms, while others used charcoal to sketch buildings and structures. Superb work all round!!

Art at The Hawthorns

To raise awareness for Breast Cancer Awareness Month recently, the residents decorated some beautiful cupcakes and made unique pink ribbon badges.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

The Christmas cake competition has begun!

Right across our 3 floors, residents have been battling it out to bake the best festive cake.

Christmas Cake Competition

Sadly we have had to say goodbye to Angela who retired on the 16th September 2021. Angela has been a huge part of Belvoir Vale for so many years and we will all miss her although she has kindly agreed to return and visit us each Sunday when the Church service take place.

Bowerfield House has had another busy activity week , starting with cupcake decorating , painting, craft and chatting about this months theme Myths, legends and fairy tails and all the different and interesting facts.

Bowerfield House Myths, Legends And Fairy Tales

The residents enjoyed the celebrations of Chocolate Day with a Chocolate Tasting. It was the perfect opportunity to enjoy their favourite chocolates with a cup of tea or coffee and reminiscing with other residents and staff about the memories that the different flavours bring them back.

Amber Court team had a great idea to turn our Oscar Awards Statue into scary mummy. We used tissue rolls to cover and draw some bloods in it. Look how amazing and scary it is. Our residents and staff in Amber Court can’t wait for our Halloween Party!

Amber Court's Scary Mummy

Bowerfield House celebrated Black History Month with a yummy Ghanaian Hot Chocolate from Ghana. We heated the milk and put brown sugar, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, honey and grated dark 85% cocoa chocolate, mixed it all together and pour into a cup with a squirt of cream .

Ghanaian Hot Chocolate

An afternoon of apple cider and apple pie in celebration of World Apple Day here at Ashfield!

World Apple Day

Congratulations to Victoria Swindells on gaining her care practitioner qualification.

Vicky has loved the training and is looking to apply for the nurse associate training.

Congratulations Victoria Swindells

Fay loves gardening and is getting the garden into shape at Carmel Lodge this Autumn.

Gardening at Carmel

Our residents enjoyed a fun-filled Disney day last month. The activities team started off by decorating the home with beautiful bright balloons and decorations.

Disney Day at Manorhey

Owen joined in with the golf tournament and more games that followed, he was the over all winner of the days games, winning a box of chocolate for his effort.

Golf Tournament

Feeling blue??

Well not in that way...

Jeans or Genes Day

One of our resident's relative sent us a lovely flowers and wrote a thank you card for everyone. This means a lot to us! We are very happy to serve and care.

Thank You Flowers and Cards.

Dorothy and Anita enjoyed the afternoon, Anita was one of our judges for our bake off. All together we raised about £60 for Macmillan.

Macmillan Coffee Morning

Residents enjoyed the Entertainment this afternoon with Roger who also works at Thornton Theatre where we have seen him perform many time, fab entertainer, enjoyed by all.