Activities at Crabwall Hall Care Home

Our residents love pub grub, and no better way to get it than popping down to the local for lunch. On our doorstep is a great pub called The Little Owl and is a firm favourite with many of our residents. It offers decent pub grub at reasonable prices, and has a permanent “Two for One” offer on which ensures the place is always packed.

This week we took a taxi and our home SUV with a small group of 4 out for lunch. The delicious dishes chosen where scampi, steak ale and chips, gammon and good old sausage and mash! Every plate was cleared and every one of our residents went back home fulfilled, not only with food, but with the well being of a trip out, mixing with the public, fresh air and a change of scenery.

We all love a bit of retail therapy and our residents are no exception. Included in our monthly schedule are weekly shopping trips to the local shops. This is offered as a one to one treat, which is very popular or can be done with a small group. This particular trip was requested by our resident Barbara, who wanted to go back to her local Waitrose in the city outskirts of Chester. Barbara used to love the short walk from her apartment in Boughton to the supermarket where she would pick up her weekly groceries and have a good chat with the staff on duty, as well as, the odd neighbour she would bump into.

Barbara thoroughly enjoyed browsing the aisles popping treats and goodies into the basket, and even recognised a member of staff and stopped for  a brief chat.

After shopping, we enjoyed a well earned coffee in the on site café, before getting the taxi home. Barbara was made up with her trip, and even more so when she tucked into the treats she had bought herself later on in the afternoon.

Our residents love to get out and about as much as possible. At the tail end of last year, three of our residents braved the cooler November weather and boarded the mini bus and we headed into the Cheshire countryside to Burwardsley to the Candle Factory Workshops.

The workshops were nice and quiet and our residents started off by painting a glass stand for their candle twist to sit in. There was a good selection of coloured paints and glitters and they all let their creative juices flow and made some lovely bright creations.

They then had a go at making their own candles. The starter wicks were carefully dipped into the melted wax a few times before the last 2 coats of their chosen colours were added. The two candles were then twisted together for the final effect. This was an activity none of our residents had ever tried before and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Whilst the candles were setting, we all enjoyed a tasty coffee and cake with views from the spacious café of the Cheshire plains and could even see Beeston Castle in the distance.

Many of our residents have had pets throughout their lives, so it’s always a real treat when visitors bring in their dogs or Alfie the PAT dog arrives on his fortnightly visit.

Four times a year we also have more exotic and unusual animals visiting with the Zoo2U team. Over the last few visits our residents have come ‘up close and personal’ to meerkats, centipedes, owls, chipmunks, and even a snake.

On their last visit, they brought along with them a very noisy and vocal parrot, an even noisier kookaburra, both of which had our residents in fits of laughter. There was also a fluffy skunk called Willow and a tiny Madagascan tenrec, which looks like a little white hedgehog.

The residents could touch the animals if they wanted to, and the team are always very informative with regards to the animals' origins, habitats, diets and their individual personalities.

Our residents love to have visiting performers and, in particular, anything to do with music. We have many singers visiting, usually at least once a month. We always have a good turnout of a full lounge and our residents never fail to bring their beautiful singing voices with them.

We recently arranged for a pianist to come and perform for an hour. We have a grand piano in our lounge, which was finally tuned over Christmas, so our residents were extra excited to hear it being played at last.

Peter is retired and has played piano and keyboard for many years. He was very interactive with our residents—as are all of our guest performers—jogging their memories with tunes, song titles and lyrics. Peter also brought along with him his own keyboard, which our residents were mesmerized by when they heard drum beats and percussion instruments coming from the small machine. Some of them commented that it was like having a whole orchestra in the lounge. Peter will be coming back soon, due to the brilliant positive response he received.