Celebrating life at Barchester

Over the weekend we went Hawaiian style and what a fantastic day it was! Residents enjoyed a wonderful tropical-themed afternoon complete with palm trees, grass skirts, live music and refreshing cocktails and sun!   

There were plenty of smiles, laughter and dancing as everyone got into the Hawaiian spirit.  It was lovely seeing so many residents enjoying themselves and making wonderful memories together. Mahalo to everyone who joined in and made the day so much fun.’’

Our residents at Lochduhar like to be in the gardens when they can. We held a gardening club, and we asked some residents what they would like to plant.

Some residents said tomatoes, peppers, beetroot and different types of flowers. We have already got some strawberry plants and we are maintaining them. We recently put a net over the strawberry plants to stop the birds from eating them. We took a minibus trip to the local garden centre to choose the plants. While we were there, we enjoyed a light lunch.

On our return, we put our mini greenhouse up and spent time in the garden. We then planted the tomatoes and peppers in grow bags and put them in the greenhouse. The nursery children that visit us weekly have planted sunflowers in the garden with the residents too. We are looking forward to the results.

We have a visit from the Northwest Nursery on a weekly basis, which we always look forward to. A few weeks ago, the children and our residents planted some sunflower seeds.

The Activities team looked after them and two weeks later, we all decided that the sunflowers were ready for planting outside. When the children arrived, we all said good morning.  

It had been raining a little, but that didn’t stop the nursery children and our residents from going outside. We took ourselves outside and the rain stopped! The children planted their sunflowers with a little help and some of our residents did too.

We used lolly pop sticks and small canes to support the sunflowers. We are looking forward to seeing the sunflowers grow, and seeing the nursery children next week.  

Challoner House in Chandlers Ford got active for Senior Health and Fitness Day, which took place on May 27th. Residents, relatives, staff and members of the local community participated in our morning session of Move it or Lose it Exercise Class led by our Activity Coordinator, Vicky. Vicky has been running our classes for over 8 years and has adapted them to suit a range of abilities. To make this session more fun, Vicky became our very own Mrs Motivator and ran an 80’s-inspired class. The residents also enjoyed more physical activities throughout the day, including Target games and Skittles.

Created to inspire senior-friendly physical activity, the national day was launched to increase awareness of the importance of remaining active to maintain strong, healthy joints and muscles, and to encourage diet and lifestyle changes for an overall improvement in wellbeing, and illness prevention.  

We had a fantastic time celebrating World Cocktail Day on Wednesday with a fun cocktail and mocktail tasting session! 
Residents enjoyed getting involved, tasting drinks and sampling a variety of cocktails and mocktails. 

The residents were joined by our Senior General Manager Sarah Hayman, Clinical Deputy Manager Gemma and our Senior Nurse, Rose, who came along and enjoyed a Mocktail and was talking to the residents about how important it is to stay hydrated and about nutrition. We all had a good discussion about different food and drinks we can enjoy and stay healthy. 

At Challoner House, we have a fantastic nursing team that are always on hand to offer advice about your loved one's care and nursing needs.    

Today we celebrated our lovely resident Eileen's birthday. When Eileen was asked what she would like for her birthday, all she asked for was an M&S cheese scone, but we went one better and took Eileen to M&S for a little retail therapy, which included stopping off in the café for a cheese scone and a pot of tea, we ended the trip by popping in at the food hall to buy more cheese scones to bring home. 

Eileen said 'I could not have asked for a better birthday afternoon, it was so lovely going out for my favourite treat'. At Challoner House we try and make our residents' wishes come true, no matter how big or small, birthday or just a normal day, every little thing matters at Challoner House. 

We are always looking at new ways to enrich the lives of our residents. Bex, our Activities lead, has an enviable reputation for her diversity and unique enthusiasm of her approach. She has introduced the whole home, to the sensation and positive life experience associated with the little known Namaste approach to relaxation.

This method is known as Namaste Care and aims to provide meaningful interactions that enhance the quality of life for individuals who are in long term residential or equally Memory Lane residents with advanced Dementia. These actions can result in a reduction of behavioural symptoms by promoting emotional well-being and ultimately life enrichment by sensory enhancement.

The thought process to relax, involves sound, taste, smells and touch. The scene to relax is set by exposing residents to relaxing Namaste music in a comfortable lounge, with sensory lighting combined with bubble sensory light and Namaste light, in a darkened room. To enhance the mood, Mocktails are served including lemon, strawberry, lime and cucumber flavours.

The sensation of smell is enhanced and senses stimulated by offering each resident sample Cajun, Nutmeg, Ginger, Chinese five Spice, Garlic and Paprika. Herbs including Rosemary and Lavender enhance the experience too. They can also help promote positive memories which boost emotional tranquillity. Hand massages using scented hand cream, stimulate touch, as does residents being presented with a sensory box, filled with fidget toys and other items providing different textures in the Namaste relaxing environment.

Residents who Immersed themselves in this session, confirmed positive affirmations, including the feeling they are loved, important, calm and can cope well with their challenges. Reassurance was also given to all participants verbally and physically by hand touching and holding. Breathwork techniques also plays an integral role in healing and calmness as it can deepen relaxation and awareness.

The Namaste approach to relaxation has proven to be such a hit with residents, with such a positive response, we intend to incorporate this calming session within our activities schedule every week. 

Here at Sherwood, we think it's important to get out and about in our local community. Residents from both units (Memory lane & Nursing unit) indulged in a trip over to Red Rose bowling, where they went against each other in a heated battle of bowling. This brought back many memories for most of our residents. They very much enjoyed the competition in this game. It's safe to say our residents very much enjoyed every second of this and didn’t even want to leave. 

They were able to reminisce about old and new with the ladies at Red Rose Bowling, even table service! What a great day it was!   

Over some of our more sunny days here at Sherwood, we had some little friends visit our home. The (Shetland ponies) staff, residents and families sat in our outside area with some cups of tea, cake and laughter, where they were able to not only stroke, walk and talk to these little fellows, but feed them too! 

Our residents very much enjoy this event with lots of chatter about this brilliant day and have asked the home to get these beautiful creatures back!