Celebrating life at Barchester

This week’s Virtual Classroom session was a Christmas-themed Winter Wonderland. The students at Coopersale Theydon Garnon School created a fun Christmas quiz for our residents, which lead to reminiscing about Christmas past, as well as a wider discussion on seasonal holidays, including Hunukkah. It was a fun and informative exploration of the season!

Although our residents have been keeping in touch with their families with garden visits, zoom calls, Facetime and telephone calls, they have also been writing to their families in 'the old fashioned way'. 

With pictures and news, we are sure their families will treasure these letters. Keeping in touch with loved ones is so important in these unprecedented times.

Birthdays may be celebrated a little differently at the moment, but with plenty of banners, balloons and cake, we have been able to make magical memories during resident garden visits.

Despite the restrictions of lockdown, music lives on and our residents had a wonderful time listening and singing along to music performed by Philippa Mo, a professional violinist, and Jennifer Begley, a professional opera singer.

I just wanted to say how truly professional and caring the staff at Lucerne House in Exeter have been during this ongoing crisis.

We have received many cards of thanks and kindness during this time. It is lovely to receive positive feedback from families and friends. 

So a big thank you to you all!

Thank you for your wonderful care for my husband... All the staff have been so caring especially when he was in quarantine.

Our family would like to say a big thank you to all the carers and nurses who have looked after Mum.

Team members and residents at Queens Court were thrilled to receive colorful and positive letters from Dundonald Primary School pupils. The staff and residents appreciate the continued support and kindness shown by the community. Thank you!

Recently, we have been able to allow residents to have visits from their family and loved ones. After the COVID-19 lockdown, it has been a huge relief for everyone to be reunited and able to speak to each other face-to-face.

Since the beginning of March, Hunters has done everything possible for residents to be able to stay in contact with family and friends, including via Skype and Facetime, but there is no substitute for face-to-face contact, and with the recent relaxing of lockdown rules, it has been to safe to start family visits, albeit under strict criteria to maintain safety.

Visits have taken place outside and at a distance of three metres, but when the weather has been unsettled, the resident has remained inside and is able to speak to their visitor, who remains outside under shelter. There have been lots of happy smiling faces and a sense of relief that families have been reunited.

Christy and Hayley, who love to crochet, came up with an idea of crocheting hearts for all residents and their families. 

During the coronavirus pandemic, all our residents are missing their loved ones; we do have Skype and FaceTime, but it’s not the same as giving your loved one an extra special hug. 

We attached a poem to the hearts and sent along a postcard to let all our families know we are well. It’s such a wonderful gesture; a big thanks to the girls for crocheting over 100 hearts!

The residents at Westergate House enjoyed an interesting and fun afternoon whilst testing out our new Virtual Reality Goggles. Ronald, one of the residents, said that the experience of virtual scuba diving on the Coral Reef and watching all the sea life swim by was simply amazing.

The goggles brought a little bit of the ‘Jacques Cousteau’ out in all of us!

Corrina Lodge enjoyed a very royal knees up and celebrated the Queens special day with her. Her Royal Highness arrived and brought a smile to everyone’s faces at Corrina Lodge. There were some tasty treats to enjoy at the party, including a particularly delicious Victoria sponge. Many of the residents and staff took the opportunity to have a photo taken with her majesty. Pictured is Joan who really got into the spirit and fun of the day. Residents also reminisced and shared some of their wonderful memories of meeting and seeing the Queen, which was lovely!

I cannot thank the manager and her wonderful staff enough for the exceptional care my mum has received throughout especially these past few months.

Wimborne invited the children of Hayling Island to paint a bug in celebration of National Children’s Gardening Week.

We had a fantastic response with all sorts of brightly coloured rock bugs arriving to Wimborne. Residents were delighted with them and were keen to paint a few themselves. All the bugs will be making their way into Wimborne’s garden.

Certificates and prizes were given to all that took part.

Due to recent circumstances - our Zoo’s are financially struggling. After our residents heard this, they were desperate to help. During our residents meeting, our residents decided we were going to adopt an animal! As much as we would love to adopt all the animals - our residents decided on a beautiful Eurasian Brown Bear. The Zoo staff were blown away with the kindness of our residents. We look forward to visiting the Zoo in the future to meet him.

As residents embrace new technology and keeping in touch with their loved ones via Skype they also been busying with traditional methods and sharing messages with postcards to send to their family and friends, who doesn’t love to receive a postcard!

Residents have also been making use of Skype and FaceTime so that they can video call their relatives – although some still aren’t too sure about the new technology!

General Manager, Alison Dickson said “It is vitally important that we ensure that our residents can remain in contact with their family and friends during this time. New technology is great for this purpose, but of course a good old fashioned letter writing is just as welcome!”

We celebrated with Joan her 100th birthday, this day was even more special as very recently Joan beat COVID-19. So the day was filled with happiness with skype calls from family in Bristol and Australia singing and wishing her a very happy birthday.

It was also made special with her daughter and family members coming to the home to sing her happy birthday with a huge specially made banner, which Joan enjoyed while standing at her window.

After lunch Joan enjoyed birthday cake and trifle and read all her cards including a special one from the Queen.

Happy 100th birthday Joan from all of us at Overslade House!