Activities at Lancaster Grange Care Home

Wow, what a fantastic afternoon yesterday for our residents at Lancaster Grange celebrating Margaret's 105th birthday!! With a string of guests marking Margaret's past of serving in the WAFFS, we certainly celebrated in true VIP style. We warmly welcomed friends and families, veterans, and representatives from the Women's Royal Air Force, our close friends RAFA Balderton, RAF Cranwell, RAF Waddington, and Red Arrows Pilot Doug Smith and colleagues.

At 2.30pm, to our delight, the Red Arrows themselves performed a flypast over the home, making Margaret one of the very few people to receive such a wonderful experience for her special birthday. We had our own dedicated song on Radio Newark, We'll Meet Again, one of Margaret’s favourite songs by Vera Lynn with a wonderful birthday message dedicated to her. We also warmly welcomed into our home Barbara Corrigan, the Mayor of Newark, and the Mayoral Team. Another wonderful surprise was arranged for Margaret. A delicious donation of cream cakes arrived for the occasion courtesy of Bakkavor Newark.

A lemon and elderflower cake with edible flowers was made for Margaret by a volunteer along with a delicious strawberry and chocolate cake made here by our hospitality team. Strawberries and Prosecco were served to our guests and enjoyed by all. Our whole home approach came to magic on that day. Teams of all departments worked hard together, pulling out all the stops and preparing for the afternoon, making it extra special. A huge thank you to all the team here at Lancaster Grange for their time, help and support in making this event a huge success !

A heartfelt thank you to all the guests that attended and shared this special afternoon with us all. Margaret said that she was “delighted” with the party, and it had “all been so wonderful." Charlotte had explained to Margaret over the weeks while working alongside her and Chris from RAFA Balderton, gathering information that there were a few surprises on the way. Margaret was overjoyed with everything. She was especially thrilled to watch the Red Arrows fly past as she had always admired the team.

Red Arrows pilot Doug Smith attended the party and presented Margaret with a signed painting of all the crew. He said: “She’s a remarkable woman, and it’s not often that you get to this age, but to come here and celebrate with her is a real honour.”

Our RAFA Balderton president, Nigel Branston, said that Margaret was a “lovely lady” and that Chris and Charlotte and the team had done so much to make this special event happen. Sqn Ldr Emma Webber, representing RAF Cranwell, said: “It’s incredible to see Margaret has such a spark to her and has such enthusiasm for life and people. It’s so nice to see her celebrating with her family and friends.”

We want to wish Margaret a very Happy105th Birthday, and we were honoured to be able to share this experience with her, her family and all her friends here at our Care Home, Lancaster Grange. 

This morning, our Lancaster Grange residents are enjoying and recognising #SeniorHealthAndFitnessDay

We gathered with our family and volunteers to have a walk in our Fernwood community, to take part in the day. We walked through the woods taking in the scenery, enjoying nature, boosting our minds, bodies and souls!!!

Making new friends in the park, stopping for an ice cream while enjoying the outdoors and exploring nature was a great experience for us all.

We rested our bodies this afternoon while also enjoying a live virtual Bingo event, playing against other Barchester homes.

It was a great afternoon of social fun and engagement for our residents! Good times here at our Care Home Lancaster Grange through our Daily Life Enrichment. 

What a great day here for our residents of Lancaster Grange Care Home.

We began our day by taking a resident outing to Blue Diamond Garden Centres in East Bridgeford on our home's minibus.

On today's trip, we invited family members to join us, enabling them to spend quality time in the community, keeping up with hobbies and interests.

It was such a wonderful surprise for our residents to see loved ones waiting for them, especially with it being half-term too.

We thoroughly enjoyed browsing the store and buying items that enhanced our esteem and emotional needs. It was a wonderful experience for us all.

Our friends Paddy and Diane joined us for May’s Pudding Club this afternoon, and they made a delicious lemon posset pudding with beautiful edible flowers.

Our afternoon of food quizzing and tasting was fantastic, with wonderful company and a delicious dessert. Thank you!!! 

Over the last few days, we have experienced a variety of activities here at Lancaster Grange as part of our varied life enrichment programme.  

We extended a warm welcome yesterday to firefighters from the Nottingham Fire and Rescue Service who came to our home and grounds, as we recognised International Firefighters Day. The firefighters gave our residents an interesting breakdown of their fire engine, including what each compartment holds, what it carries, and what the equipment is used for.

Our residents took time to listen and fully enjoy their company. We would like to thank them all for taking time to visit us. A great few days for our residents of Lancaster Grange Care home. 

Our VE Day Celebrations were in full swing here at Lancaster Grange as we held our own party here at Lancaster Grange Care Home.

Welcoming our friends and family into our home to enjoy a live performance by Melody Flyte was a joyous occasion for all. Our home was filled with delicious food and drinks celebrations and great company uniting together to mark the day.

Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Germany's unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945; it marked the official surrender of all German military operations. We had such a wonderful time with our family and friends and a great whole home approach. The day was amazing, and we enjoyed every moment together. 

Today at our care home, Lancaster Grange, we celebrated #internationalnursesday with our colleagues, families, and residents. We wanted to thank all our nurses at Lancaster Grange for their unwavering support and dedication to the residents and families living in our home.

Our nurses on duty today were Irina, our Deputy Manager, Maria and Winnie. We came together this afternoon to celebrate this day and share wonderful stories of what inspired them to become nurses.

We all enjoyed listening to and sharing our experiences with nursing, and it was great to hear our resident Beryl's story and tales of her nursing career. We want to express our appreciation to all the nurses in our care home at Lancaster Grange. Enjoy your tea and cakes. You deserve it!!! We wish all our nurses a very wonderful International Nurses Day 2025! 

We happily enjoyed a ‘Purr..fact’ day here yesterday, in all our communities at Lancaster Grange.

We warmly welcomed Michelle's Animal Therapy & Petting Party with her therapy cats. Michelle brought along 6-month-old Angeline, and therapy veterans Simon and Boots, all the Persian and Rag Doll pedigree breads.

Residents queued to take part in this very first only cats therapy session. To our residents' delight, no one was disappointed.

The cats brought calm, kindness, affection and sensory stimulation to all our cat-loving residents. We look forward to welcoming the cats back in the summer!!! 

Today at Lancaster Grange, we had a wonderful day celebrating world beer with a pint and prosecco birthday party and sunny garden walks.

This afternoon we had a great time celebrating Gerald's birthday with the residents here at Lancaster Grange. As it turns out, Gerald shared his birthday with World Beer Day and Gerald happily shared that he spent most of his working life working on accounts for breweries.

Gerald had fun with our afternoon quiz and knew a lot of answers while we learnt all about beer! To mark the day, our residents had a fantastic time sampling beer and prosecco in our comforting lounge. 

The residents of Lancaster Grange have been out and about enjoying the sunshine over the last few days. Yesterday afternoon, the residents of Thorsby enjoyed afternoon garden walks and talks in our sunny grounds.

A glorious afternoon was spent in our grounds admiring our spring flowers. Ray was thrilled to visit our RAF Monument and found this very moving, having spent time serving in the RAF himself.

A great time for our residents of Thorsby. This morning, we went out and about in our minibus, taking a scenic and countryside drive through villages including Bottesford, Staunton, and Allington. We stopped at our destination, Belvoir Castle, to take in breathtaking views of the castle.

Our residents have had a fantastic day and the weather has been good. Happy times here for our residents of Lancaster Grange.