Nora, and her husband Ken celebrated their 70th Wedding Anniversary on Wednesday,  29th July. It was Ken's first time social distance visiting with Nora since we have been on lockdown as he himself has been shielding. They have been video chatting regularly, but it was a very special day for the two of them to finally see each other in person.

This month has been filled with activities focusing on our theme of "Around the World". We have celebrated all of the continents throughout this month. 

We began July with North America. We had a Mexico day where we had fajitas and chilli con carne for dinner. In the afternoon we had a pinata. We also had Canada day bingo and we wrote to our pen pals who live in Waterloo, Ontario. 

The residents at Buckingham House will be encouraged to attach a wish written on a golden leaf, something they would like to do and the home will do what they can to facilitate the wish.

Our lavender in the back garden has been getting very long so we decided to cut it all down so we could enjoy it!

The residents created bunches of the lavender and then we tied them up to hang off of our arch to dry. After a week or so we are going to take all the dried lavender off to put into small sachets that can be put in everyone's rooms or in their clothes drawers to make them smell fresh. If we have leftover lavender we will make lavender pomanders which are also a great decoration for rooms and make the area smell great.

We have received many messages of thanks over the last few months and below is an example of the lovely messages sent.

On Wednesday 22nd July Troutbeck hosted an Hawaiian themed party for our residents. Staff dressed in grass skirts and sang and danced for our residents. Residents wore the traditional Luau flower garlands, we had tropical fruit platters, pineapple and mango cocktails and flamingo themed cake, it all made for a thoroughly enjoyable day.

Residents at Bowerfield Court loved making tie dye t-shirts. Everyone chose their design and colours and we patiently waited a week for the dye to set. Once they were ready our laundry staff washed them and now everyone has a new colourful shirt!

It was a great day of activities for Bastille day at Cavendish Court. In the morning we had lots of french toast followed by learning basic words in French and also reciting the numbers 1-20 in French.

In the afternoon we created some passports and boarding passes which residents have kept for future travels at Cavendish court, we finished off the day with painting by Picasso seeing if we can follow his footsteps with our unique designs.

To celebrate our 'Around the World' theme, we made our own Dominican Republic carnival masks to wear for our upcoming party.

"It was a great day of activities for Bastille day, in the morning we had lots of French toast followed by learning basic words in French and also reciting the numbers 1-20. Everyone had a great experience and really enjoyed the day.