Activities at Kirkburn Court Care Home

April began with a series of Easter festivities. Great hilarity ensued as we decided to relive our youth and decorate some hard boiled eggs for rolling – some interesting face designs emerged! We also completed an Easter egg hunt with some chocolate bunnies as prizes – they did not last long! Our residents also coloured in some lovely Easter pictures which we displayed throughout the home. Activities Coordinator, Claire Burden, said “the egg decorating was the real favourite this Easter, there was so much laughter which was lovely to hear.”

March has brought great excitement here to Kirkburn as we have been permitted to begin welcoming back visitors. The first day of visiting was an emotional day for our families, residents and staff and we were delighted that after lots of hard work and behind the scenes preparation, the day ran very smoothly. Pictured alongside our deputy manager Heather is Jim, who was absolutely delighted to come in and visit his lovely wife Kathleen. Jim summed up the experience by simply saying “that was magic!”

This month has seen the debut of our new mobile table top oven. This has been a great addition which allows our residents to be even more involved in our cooking activities. We decided to try our hand at cupcakes and we were delighted with the results! After successfully making a batch of cakes we then added some decoration and it wasn’t too long before all the cakes had been devoured! Activities Coordinator, Claire Burden said “The residents really enjoyed being able to watch the cakes as they cooked and there was great excitement to see how they were going to turn out.”

This month has also seen us celebrate Nutrition and Hydration Week. Keeping a focus on healthy eating and drinking, we decided to experiment with some new fruit smoothie recipes. Residents once again donned their aprons and tested out their culinary skills with some fruit preparation, weighing and measuring. We made three different varieties and after lots of taste tasting, the cranberry and raspberry variety came out as the overall favourite. One resident, Morag said “they were so refreshing and tasted better because we made them ourselves!”

This year’s Pancake Day was celebrated by our residents and team members trying their hand at making a few batches of pancakes. Our Activities Coordinator, Claire, is well known as being the world’s worst cook, so the residents’ very much took the lead with this activity. Once the batter had been expertly made by our resident’s, they then had to oversee Claire’s cooking of the pancakes! It was agreed by all that the pancakes were a great success and there were plenty of volunteers on hand to try a sample! Activities Coordinator, Claire Burden, said “the residents did an amazing job of making the batter and it was a real team effort – I even picked up a few baking tips from them along the way!”

Resident’s and team members have been taking part in variety of love and kindness themed activities this month. Our message boards proved to be popular with residents thinking of kind phrases and compliments that could be given to others. Love heart decorations were made in time for Valentine’s Day to brighten up the walls and residents had great fun selecting different embellishments to personalise their hearts. One resident, Fred, said “the walls look much better with our decorations.”