Activities at Cheshire Grange Care Home

Alpacas are herd animals and like the company of others, including llamas, goats, and very evidently residents at Cheshire Grange!

The Alpacas, from Woodlands Alpaca Farm, except for Bruce who was sulking that day, loved getting to know the ladies and gents, residents, families and staff were very happy to spend time indulging the special guests who enjoyed all the fuss.

It was amazing watching everyone's reactions to the visiting alpacas, many residents loving the feel of their coats, others laughing at their strange little noises, the overall opinion was how cute they were.

However, and this highlights one of the many benefits of animal therapy, a resident who had been a farmer all their life was back at a livestock sale, weighing up the benefits of adding an alpaca to their stock, how much they were willing to bid up to and seeing which one looked the best as they were walked round...

Staff, residents and relatives came together at Cheshire Grange Care Home in Lymm to enjoy a fun filled Alice in Wonderland Fun Day.

The Queen of Hearts, aka Dawn Holsgrove-Smith, General Manager, presided over the event keeping her court in order as The Mad Hatter, White Rabbit, The Cheshire Cat & Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum got everyone in the spirit playing games, including croquet on the lawn.

The event was staged to welcome the cyclists taking part in the fundraising Tour De Barchester. On the final day of their gruelling 225-mile ride supporting The Barchester Foundation, the Tour stopped to join the Tea Party, enjoying The Mad Hatters' refreshments!

Our local rugby team, Warrington Wolves, were on the road to Wembley to compete in the Challenge Cup Final and the club mascot paid us a visit to thank us for our support.

The spirit of the Challenge Cup Final was in full swing! The entire home was decked out in wire colours from top to bottom, and the passion was truly infectious ahead of the big game at Wembley! Amongst our residents there were two truly remarkable individuals who had more reason than most to cheer on the Primrose and Blue…

Olive, whose grandfather-in-law was none other than Alf Boardman – a Wire legend who made history as the first Warrington player to reach 400 appearances. Alf played in the club’s very first four Challenge Cup finals, earned an England cap in 1905, and lifted the cup twice. A Hall of Famer, a trailblazer, and a forward who gave his all for the Wire. 

And Graham Welborn, former Mayor of Warrington and lifelong Wire fan, who shared memories, stories, and some true Wire pride with Wolfie and the team. It was a day full of heritage, heart, and history. Thank you, Wolfie and your team, for finding the time to say hello and bringing lots of joy to our residents.

This quote from Anne Frank's Diary serves to emphasise the importance of radio, especially in the bleak times of the war. This made the visit from 'Cheshire Mix 56' more poignant when they came to interview residents for a show looking at memories of VE Day and putting the world back together again.

Residents enjoyed sharing their memories with Ian from the station, especially Peggy, who will be celebrating her 105th birthday in June this year! She recounted being in the bath when Winston Churchill spoke on the radio about the end of the war in Europe!

We get lots of visitors at Cheshire Grange, but they don’t always turn up with nets of hay and in their own pens!

Kimzy from Mobile Farm, Cheshire, brought along her friends, Henry and Shaun the Black Nose Valais Sheep, Dave & Sidney the baby goats, Floppsy a French Lop Eared Rabbit and a pair of 3-week-old chicks.

Residents, staff and visitors were able to handle these beautiful animals and got to know a little bit more about their lives. 

We had many celebrations over the week for VE Day, including singers, creative projects, poems and reminiscences. A very poignant part of our celebrations were the Hopes For Peace messages.

Lymm Parish Council invited us, along with other community groups, to share a ‘Message of Hope’, encouraging the local community to reflect on the importance of peace.

Cheshire Grange residents wrote their messages on brown tags similar to those worn by evacuees. These were then displayed in the Village Hall as part of the community celebrations.

We took these messages and duplicated them for our own sentiment tree in our reception area, where visitors could read and reflect on thoughts such as ‘My happiest memory was seeing the street lights coming on and peace and quiet from the sirens.', 'With peace, we can live without fear of violence and discrimination’ and ‘It's so important for a community to have hope, peace and unity to bring each other together and have support’. 

The Cheshire Grange Family had a very busy Easter. In the run-up to the weekend, residents took part in various creative projects decorating Easter Bonnets to wear on Easter Sunday and also Easter Broaches. Broach making has become a very popular creative activity. As with all our creative projects, there was music, poems and lots of smiles and laughter.

The home was decorated and the Easter Bunny popped in on Good Friday to make sure everyone was ready for Sunday.

There were competitions and raffles. Guessing the weight of the cake was very popular. The nearest correct weight won the delicious Blueberry & Lemon cake that Karen our Administrator had baked for us. On Easter Sunday, St Marys Church visited to conduct an Easter Communion Service. The Hospitality team created an amazing roast lamb dinner and the day was rounded off with a visit from the Easter Bunny, bringing lots of smiles and joy.

Cheshire Grange residents welcomed a first visit from Mark from The Music Memory Cafe. Mark brought with him, music, fun & games and hats, the most amazing fun collection of hats.

The residents sang, danced, played balloon tennis and football and smiled and laughed through the morning and everybody is looking forward to Mark's next visit.

We were all very excited by the arrival of our new mini-bus and couldn’t wait for all the adventures we could have, but the weather had other ideas, and nobody was that keen to venture out in the cold wind.

We waited patiently and made our first trip out. When the weather improved, we made the short journey to Irlam Station for lunch. The Station at Irlam is a working station on the Liverpool/Manchester line that has an amazing café. The old station buildings have been converted, keeping the character and charm of the building and many original features from the station over the years.

The Station at Irlam is a favourite with our residents and on this trip they enjoyed soup and sandwiches whilst reminiscing about the area and their memories of train journeys.