Activities at Alice Grange Care Home

Our Halloween is always “No Tricks but plenty of treats” as we celebrate with children from the community visiting us from Rainbow nursery and family, and friends of Alice Grange as we enjoyed a Canine Fancy Dress with Ted the Pug Cross being the winner, followed by fun and games for residents, with the finale of the afternoon of live entertainment from Jane and Julie. 

The benefits of a throw and tell ball encourage conversation and reminiscing and is known to unlock memories. This simple but effective game brings so much joy as each resident finds out about each other.     

Our local pub, The Farmhouse, Suffolk, part of Greene King, has a powerful focus on community engagement and is in the early weeks of their Communi-tea, where people can gather for a drink of tea or coffee to reduce loneliness and befriend others. There was a lot of laughter with stories being told by each resident.

We took a group of our residents over and engaged with others in the community, and also invited them to our Coffee morning each Friday.

What a start and end to each week with befriending those in our community. 

Today we celebrated not one but two occasions. The first was our lovely Grace Santos, who had literally grown up with Alice Grange, was one of the first employees when Alice Grange first opened.

Grace has stepped up as Interim Deputy and has now accepted the role of Deputy Manager, and we are all so pleased for her.
The second was for our maintenance team, who recently achieved an excellent Health and Safety Report. Congratulations to Keith and William.

General Manager Raciel thanked all three of them and handed them gifts, and the whole team celebrated with a variety of food and drinks.   

We started our day with a trip out to Ipswich Cenotaph to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VJ Day.
Then in the afternoon, we had Jayne Katrine singer/vocalist join us, singing all the songs that were popular throughout WWII.

So many people of the older generation don't like fireworks. The noise takes them back to the 1914-1918 and 1939-1945 of World War l and World War II. 

We therefore started our day with a themed event by Mr Bean Entertainment, a Magician, followed by a historical virtual event. Our residents were so thrilled by the choice for the day. 

Today we celebrated Sheila's 106th Birthday. She started her day with a pamper morning, followed by friends and staff popping in to wish her a happy birthday throughout the day.

She was then presented with 106 cards from local schoolchildren in the community, as well as from staff and residents. Some of our other homes also got involved and sent cards, not forgetting one from King Charles III and Queen Camilla. We then had Lucy, the Photographer of The Ipswich Star, who came along to take many pictures for tomorrow's newspaper. We finished the day with a party for friends, family, and staff with live vocals from Suffolk singer, Gina.

Sheila said, "I now know what it feels like to be famous. Thank you for an amazing day."

What better way to spend the day than to go and view a historical ship replica that has docked at Ipswich waterfront? The original ship, the Nao Santa Maria, sailed to America in 1492 as part of Christopher Columbus's fleet.

What an opportunity it was to see this replica on a wet and windy morning before stopping off for some delicious cake and coffee.

You can take the girls out of London, but you can't take London out of the girls. Lilly and Pat have formed a friendship, with Pat visiting for respite several times a year and joining us each week at our community coffee morning, while Lilly is a permanent resident.

They often talk about their upbringing, roots, and growing up in London. They talk about "Proper Grub" as they put it, and when a shop opened up in Ipswich serving traditional food, sharing that same sense of pride, letting others experience the food and the culture just as it should be – straight from the heart of London to their plate.

Today, we headed out to T's Traditional for both Lilly and Pat to enjoy this much-loved Cockney Classic. Lilly's Son also joined us, making it a real family affair. The journey back was a quiz on the A-Z of Cockney Rhyming slang.

We encourage all schools and nurseries to visit us and for us to visit them.

Today, we welcomed the children from The Roundabout Nursery to join us for some singing and story time.
Our residents really enjoyed reading to the children and the intergenerational link is so important, it highlights the connection and interactions between age groups of different generations.      

A day of honouring the bravery and sacrifice of all the world wars. "Lest we forget" is a phrase meaning "it should not be forgotten," used as a solemn reminder, most often in the context of remembering those who have died in wars. 

We held a 2-minute silence and short service before remembering those with entertainment from Brian Shaw.   

Our Aviary has been an ongoing project since the summer, and the grand opening was a great success.

So much preparation has been made to make this happen for our residents, their families, and friends to enjoy. This intergenerational project will bring so much joy to all ages as we link with local schools. 

Not one but two baby showers for Senior carer Emily and Carer Komal. Our residents never had baby showers in their day, so it was so much fun for them to join in on games, tips, and hints for the mums-to-be.

We look forward to the new arrivals and wish both Emily and Komal and their families all the love and happiness in the world that these little ones will bring.  

We visit Felixstowe many times a year, and many of our residents have expressed interest in going on The View, also known as the Felixstowe Eye. 

Today, being our resident ambassador's birthday, we headed out to Felixstowe, and their wishes came true. The View was absolutely amazing, looking out to the Port of Felixstowe, the largest and busiest port in the UK.

We enjoyed a Fish and Chip lunch, and as the residents said, you can't beat eating Fish and Chips out of the paper, by the sea. We returned to enjoy a delicious cake made by our Chef for our birthday girl.

Today we headed out on our new minibus to Friday Street Farm Shop & Kitchen to go strawberry picking. 

It was so nice to be able to pick the strawberries and take them back for all to share.