Activities at Alice Grange Care Home

What a beautiful day to head on the mini bus to Christchurch Park and Mansion. Christchurch Mansion was built by Edmund Withpoll around 1548-1550.

We spent time in the Mansion before a well-deserved cup of tea, followed by a picnic in the park and of course ice cream.

Rose one of our residents who is not familiar with the area was delighted by the day, Rose’s family were so pleased that we were able to get Rose to go out. 

Her Niece Amanda said “We have been trying to get her to go to all kinds of places and the answer is always no so thank you so much”.

Sybil another of our residents who knew a lot about the history took pleasure in sharing her knowledge.

Staff and residents at Alice Grange  were delighted to have Espoir School of Dance come to visit.

Many of our residents come from a background of music and dance and asked if it were possible to see some of the talented dancers out there.

Head of Activities Penny Allen got in touch with the local dance school and asked Principle Chloe Giles if she would be able to comply something for our residents to watch in the comfort of their home

We had 5 delightful young dancers who performed beautifully. All danced a series of solos, demonstrating a high level of technique and bringing a smile to all the resident's faces.

General Manager, Raciel Sagun said: “What an absolute delight to see these youngsters dance for us, I very much like dancing myself but it was an absolute pleasure to see these lovely young ladies performing their solo dance routines.

Margaret Batten, a resident said: “ When I first came to Alice Grange I was asked what type of thing I liked to do one of the things that I said I would like to see were ballerinas, I was delighted to see this it brought a tear to my eye”

Geoff’s wife Patricia had stayed with us for respite care while Geoff could go on holiday. 

Geoff has the motivation to still travel and why not at 83? Surely this must stem from his time travelling when younger starting at 17 when Geoff joined the Navy.

Geoff was so pleased in knowing that his wife was being cared for by us that he said he would like to give a talk on his time serving on The Royal Yacht HMY Britannia as a small way of saying thank you.

Our residents enjoyed the talk and looking at the pictures Geoff had from all those years ago even a menu from 1962 Christmas menu aboard the HMY Britannia.

Our Easter Trail was an absolute hit with children of our residents friends and family and the community joining us.

We were a bit cheeky as we held this on April 1st so with this being April Fool's day we not only had 50 golden tickets to be cracked from an egg but 50 April Fool's pranks.

Of course, everyone who joined us on the day received an Easter Egg from our Easter Bunny.

David is a very private gentleman who has been a lifelong supporter of Arsenal Football Club. David will quite often talk of his love of the team and matches that he remembers, the most talked match is the 1971 FA Cup Final where Charlie George scored the winning goal against Liverpool Football Club to secure an historic double winning season for the club.

Penny our lead activities coordinator was fortunate enough to meet Charlie George while at the Emirates Stadium in North London and had taken some very special unique pictures of Charlie George and was happy to share one of these with David, of which she framed and presented to him on his day of being resident of the day and VIP for the day.

David was so pleased to receive this gift and said he will treasure it forever.

Margaret who lives with dementia carries her Mother’s picture with her at all times unfortunately the frame became worn. So we treated Margaret to a new frame and added her Mother's name.

Margaret was so grateful to receive this gift which we presented to her as she was our VIP for the day on our resident of the day.

This was such good timing in the Mother's Day run-up, bringing Margaret joy and happiness.