Activities at Cheshire Grange Care Home

Staff and residents always enjoy their regular visits from therapy dogs, imagine the reaction when a recent pet therapy session was organised and Beau, Boo & Ted, three of the most adorable alpacas from Woodlands Alpaca Farm, Thelwall were on the patio waiting to say hello!.

Whoever said never work with animals or children had obviously never met Boo, Beau & Ted who won the residents heart’s the staff were fairly smitten too!!!

Resident Olive was very excited by the Woodland Alpaca Farm’s animals: “I can’t believe I’ve been able to get so close to such beautiful animals, it’s wonderful.” 

The Cheshire Grange Family had a special treat with a visit from Mobile Farm Cheshire .

Kimzy brought her animal friends, Freddie & Otis a young pair of Valais Black Nosed Sheep, Two very playful goats, Silkie Chicks and Flopsy the softest rabbit ever.

Residents were interested in finding out more about the animals and were amazed at how gentle they were and how much they loved being petted. The visit wasn't just restricted to the garden as Flopsy and the chicks went to visit some of the residents in their rooms.

Everyone agreed it was a great afternoon and can't wait for a return visit.

Marks and Spencer's have an archive museum based in Leeds which is open for groups to visit, from this resource they loan out 'boxes' to care home. We were lucky enough to have the loan of a  'What We Wore' box....this contained original garments from the 50's, 60's & 70's along with information about them. We were also very fortunate to add to the collection, as Activities Coordinator Jo, never throws anything away, so we also had some very stylish clothing from the 1980s,  a 1940s wedding dress and baby clothes from 1965!

The ladies all remembered the infamous panty girdle and making a 'pinny' in needlework classes. They were fascinated by the baby dress that Activities Coordinator Jo brought in and the photo of her wearing it!!!

Thank you to M&S for sharing the box with us and giving us a fantastic reminiscence activity & the Activities Team an excuse to dress up. This was so successful  we now plan to build our own collection so it can become a regular feature of our Life Enrichment programme.

Music is so important in our world, and nobody who desires access to the beauty of music should be denied this by their circumstances.

Sandra Currie, Care Home Entertainer, helped us to share the warmth of music with residents who would not normally be able to share the joy of our entertainers, after entertaining our residents in the lounge Sandra then became a strolling songstress visiting residents in their rooms, singing Que Sera Sera and You Are My Sunshine, the responses from residents and their families and Sandras natural connection with the residents made this a very special afternoon.

We love to get out and about but sometimes we forget how lovely our own garden is, so we had a ‘Stop At Home Coffee Trip’ to the back patio in the glorious morning sunshine. The residents were able to join us for as long as they likes, some only passing through to say hello and make sure our biscuits were up to standard!

Over our coffee and biscuits we shared lots of memories of comedians of the past and were treated to a wonderful Les Dawson impersonation of his Cissy And Ada sketch.

We love our music at Cheshire Grange and always like to have a variety of styles from classical to musical hall favourites, to show tunes and of course we love a great party and we can always guarantee that with a visit from Lockdown Ukes.

We are getting in touch with the producers at Strictly Come Dancing after Doreen set the room alight with her YMCA moves.