Activities at Lucerne House Care Home

We had some great mini-bus trips at Lucerne House, going to places of interest, garden centres, shopping trips and also revisiting one of our favourite places, café 53, at Bridge Motorcycles.

Residents have enjoyed browsing the showroom, reminiscing about times they have owned or ridden bikes and having a chance to chat and socialise.

It was a great chance to reminisce, share experiences and also to brainstorm other places that may be of interest for us to visit.
With the rain, hopefully taking a break in the coming weeks and months, we will have many more enjoyable trips to places that our residents will enjoy.                        

We have had a "flippin'" great time today, celebrating pancake day.

Residents have been able to enjoy a variety of toppings, including the traditional lemon and sugar, chocolate spread and golden syrup. The pancakes were a roaring success. Alfred said, "The pancakes were delicious and a wonderful treat."

John, who had a go at flipping a pancake, said, "it's been forty years since I tossed a pancake!" We all think you did a great job.

Thank you to everyone who has joined and enjoyed the pancakes today.  

We had a brilliant time at our Christmas party!

Residents, family members, friends and returning visitors enjoyed nibbles, drinks and a wonderful musical performance from our life enrichment, care, hospitality and housekeeping team. The Christmas songs were booming and everyone was singing their hearts out, raising a glass and bringing in the Christmas cheer.

Thank you to everyone who has joined and supported us today. It's been a great afternoon, and we have loved sharing it with you.

If we don't see you before the big day, let us take this chance to wish you a Merry Christmas.          

Over the last  five years, residents at Lucerne House have been engaging with our local community, hosting a Virtual Halloween Costume and fancy dress competition.

The event sees families and members of our community submitting their best Halloween get up to our Facebook page. Then, after the closing date, our residents sit and collectively score each entry, picking five lucky winners. This year was as close as ever with some amazing outfits and creativity with the entries. It was a hard decision but five winners were selected and received a goody bag each, full of treats to enjoy.

Having this engagement with our community is something we hold very dearly to us and we feel so blessed, each year, to have such enthusiasm from our local community.    

Something's afoot at Lucerne House Care Centre – Barchester Healthcare.

In September, residents at Lucerne House started a new group. Inspired by the recent Netflix release, based on the book, "The Thursday Murder Club", we have started our own "Lucerne Murder Club."

To get things rolling, residents have been relaxing and enjoying a screening of the recent release in our brand-new community lounge, complete with popcorn, snacks and nibbles. Then, the following week, the residents met for what was the first of many meetings indulging a just for fun "murder mystery case". This will be an ongoing club where residents will need the wits about them as they trawl through case notes, pictures and clues, trying to solve the case.

It's been great fun, and we can't wait to get stuck in, over the next few weeks.  

Residents and visitors have enjoyed a wonderful Mother's Day High Tea at Lucerne House

Prior to the event, our residents were busy in our lifestyle kitchen baking some of the tasty treats and decorating cakes, ready for the big event.

On the big day, residents and visitors were treated to sparkling wine, cakes and scones, made by our residents, prawn cocktail, salmon and creme cheese with cucumber sandwiches and other tasty treats

We also took time to raise our glasses to thank all of the wonderful Mothers and mother figures in our lives for all they have done and continue to do for us and their children.              

We have had a wonderful time at The New Inn Alphington recently. The rain was really coming down this afternoon, so stopping at the pub was the perfect place to be.

Our residents have enjoyed a little tipple, snacks and been sharing memories of their first house, their first car and ideas for places to visit in 2026.

We want to thank the team at the New Inn for their wonderful hospitality this afternoon. Our residents felt like V.I.P's and are really looking forward to their next visit.

They have even taken a menu away with them to plan what they would like to eat on a lunch outing, planned for later in the month.  

In December, residents welcomed foundation, year 1, year 2 and owls classes from Alphington Primary School and Year 7 from South Brook Academy to Lucerne House Santa's Grotto.

Students were encouraged to engage with festive activities, including:- making Christmas decorations, writing letters, drawing pictures of what they would like for Christmas and making reindeer food. Each child then visited Santa and his "resident" elves where they each received a Christmas gift.

We also welcomed years 3 and 4 from Alphington Primary School, who have performed a wonderful festive medley for our residents to enjoy. Thank you to everyone who joined us. It was wonderful.

We hope everyone who visited has had a wonderful time, and we wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.      

What an amazing experience our residents have had recently.

Brenda, Katherine and Mary, accompanied by members of our Activities team, Jan and Kirsty have taken a trip to the Titanic exhibition and experience at Westpoint Arena.

They have learnt lots of amazing facts about the fated vessel, seen some wonderful exhibits and pieces of memorabilia and information, met the captain who checked their tickets and even replicated the famous pose by Kate Winslet from the motion picture.

On each of their ticket stubs they had the name of a real passenger, who travelled on the famous voyage in 1912.

Sadly, all but one of our party's named passengers perished, but, everyone has said what an amazing experience they have had.  

Over the past year, our residents have indulged in a real labour of love, planning, building and completing our model train set.
The whole idea started back in the summer of 2024, when Jay Walker, who was doing his apprenticeship for Great Western Railway, came to do fortnightly volunteering. He brought his train set and shared his passion and love of trains.

This then inspired our residents to create our own train set, complete with landmarks and landscapes. Many residents have assisted over the year, and we want to thank them all, Reg, Ruth, Pat, Geoff, Gill, Netty, June, Daphne, John, Rob, Alfred and Mary E and Mary B and all of our relatives and visitors.

They have all added bits and pieces along the way, and we are incredibly proud of the effort they have put in to complete our train set. There are just some last bits of testing and fine-tuning before our set will be donated to our new friends who have been joining us, over the past year, from South Brook Academy. 

Thank you once again to our residents, visitors and especially Jay for all of your input, enthusiasm and engagement in this project. 

Residents have had a great time at our brand-new art club at Lucerne House.

We have all gathered in our Memory Lane community, which was transformed into our art studio, complete with easels, canvases and painting materials.

We have seen some wonderful paintings and interpretations of our still-life vase of flowers which, once dried, will be proudly displayed in our residents' rooms.

Our Art Club will run monthly, and we look forward to seeing more creative flair and wonderful paintings, as our club develops.      

Residents and visitors had a wonderful evening, celebrating all things Scottish, in honour of Robert Burns and Burns Night.

They read the address to the haggis before enjoying a Scottish feast, including: Haggis, Neaps and tatties with whisky sauce, followed by Cranachan for pudding, all complimented with a little whisky tipple.

David, who is originally from Scotland, said: “It's been a great evening and has brought back so many memories of my time growing up in Scotland." Alfred, who also resides at Lucerne House, said, "This has been a wonderful evening and wanted to commend the efforts of the hospitality and life enrichment tea for all their efforts.”

We want to thank our residents and their family members for helping to make the Cranachan and to our Head Chef, Darren, for his support with the meal this evening.    

Our residents have had a great time this morning, taking a trip to our local Tenpin.

They enjoyed two games of bowling followed by a bite to eat and a little tipple in the bar and restaurant. There was even time to have a go in the arcade, enjoying a spin on Mario Kart racing.

A special thank you to Tanya, one of our care team members, for supporting our trip this morning.

The gents have all said they had an excellent time and thoroughly enjoyed getting out and about. The pizza and burgers were delicious and the "refreshments" went down very well.   

It's that time of year again, when our residents have taken a trip to browse the decorations, ready for the festive season. Today we went to our local The Range for a bit of retail therapy. 

Residents had a great time and said there were some amazing things on offer. They have picked up a few times for decorating and even some items for our Halloween activities.

They have then been discussing all things festive over a hot drink and cake in the café and are looking forward to our festive events which will be published on our Countdown to Christmas, later this year.   

We had a fantastic time, in September, at our Autumn Fayre.

Residents, visitors, staff and members of our community have joined us in our garden where we had a host of wonderful stalls, live music, delicious food and were even fortunate to enjoy the sun.

Thank you to RNLI Exmouth Fundraising and Shop, Finishing Touches Boutique, Slice of Memories, Tash James with Scentsy, Elaine Bowler with Tropic Skincare, Jess with homemade jewellery, Sounds Easy for a special ukulele performance and to our teams who donated items for our bric-a-brac stalls and raffle.

Stormy from the R.N.L.I. even made an appearance.

Everyone has said they have had a wonderful time and felt a great sense of community, welcoming everyone to our home.

We look forward to welcoming you all back for our Christmas Market event, in December.