Activities at Highview House Care Home

We were treated to an amazing live virtual talk and a tour of Cliveden, hosted by the house and chapel guides from the National Trust Talks Service.

The volunteers kindly gave us a tour around the famous house taking an in-depth look at Cliveden’s many stories from its 350 year history, from devilish dukes to scandalous headlines and boundary-breaking garden designs to political notoriety.

Starting with the Duke of Buckingham who built the first house in 1666, our residents met the key owners who helped shape the house and its gardens including the Orkney, Sutherland and Astor families.

The talk was accompanied by an illustrated presentation which brought to life these individuals and showed how their influence at Cliveden still continues today.

It is important that we know as much as we can about our residents, their lives before they came to live with us and their aspirations now that they are here. We utilise our "Getting to know me" booklets to gather information on their likes/dislikes, hobbies, family, friends etc. and create a mini life story for each individual. These are updated and added to regularly to reflect our residents current desires and to assist us in helping our residents to achieve them, it is also a wonderful way to spend quality one to one time with our residents.

Some of our residents  took advantage of a little winter sunshine and enjoyed some much needed fresh air. We have a fish pond in the garden and our residents were delighted to see the fish swimming around. We are looking forward to more outdoor activities weather permitting. We also visited our vegetable garden which we started last year to give it a clean so we can prepare for this year’s crop. We have had lots of ideas from our residents and staff of different  vegetable’s to grow, so in the next couple of months we will be starting to sow the seeds ready for planting.

We had a fabulous time joining NESCAFÉ’s virtual coffee experience.

We were able to look into how they sustainably farm their coffee beans, as well as, to have a virtual tour of one of their factories all from the comfort of our home.

To make things even more interesting, our residents had the chance to test their knowledge with an interactive quiz, and to the delight of all to taste the signature Sweet Cinnamon Shaken Iced Coffee cocktail.

We had a lovely time joining Chef Alex Connell from Vegetarian for Life for a Valentine’s-inspired virtual cookery demonstration.  Chef Alex created some delicious Valentine’s Day-inspired vegetarian desserts, which our residents had the opportunity to try too.

First, our residents sampled a wonderful sticky toffee pudding, which was absolutely heavenly. Then they tried hazelnut truffles which were a huge hit and finally they were treated to a chocolate orange cake which everyone adored.

Here at Highview we prepared a traditional Burns Night feast to the tune of bagpipes.

To honour the famous Scottish poet, we hosted a poetry and music session to learn more about the Scottish Country Dancing and the Ceilidh and to mark the Scottish institution, including giving the time-honoured address to the ‘Great chieftain O’ the pudding’ race’ – the haggis.

Our tables were specially decorated with flowers and Scottish flags for the occasion as our residents enjoyed delicious Scot Broth, Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, Cranachan, prepared by our talented chef.

We all had a wonderful time learning more about Robert Burns and the Scottish culture and traditions and a musical performance too!