Activities at Oak Grange Care Home

We celebrated Remembrance Day with English National Ballet Associate Dance Artist, Richard Bermange, who led a creative dance workshop for our residents followed by a special extract of Akram Khan’s work Dust, premiered in 2014 as part of ENB’s Lest We Forget programme, commemorating the First World War.

ENB company dancers, Erina Takahashi and James Streeter performed the extract and provided some insight into this moving work.

Our residents had a wonderful time as they listened, danced and were able to singalong to famous war time music performed by ENB Associate Musician, Matt Hartley-Stevens.

Oak Grange Care Home in Mollington Grange commemorated Remembrance Day on Sunday 14 November.  They joined the rest of the United Kingdom in holding a two-minute silence at 11am.

As well as marking Remembrance Day by wearing poppies and watching the televised service from The Cenotaph, residents took part in therapeutic activities listening to old wartime songs, and reading war poems.

June, a resident at Oak Grange Care Home, said: “It is very important that we keep the memories of those who fought alive and that we also think about those involved in conflicts around the world today.”

Residents at Oak Grange Care Home in Mollington Grange had a brilliant day on Thursday 4th November as they marked the start of the Hindu festival of Diwali, popularly known as the ‘festival of lights’.

Residents helped with making colourful patterned rangoli and lighting ‘diyas’, small oil lamps which are lit to signify the triumph of good over evil. Diwali honours Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth, the lamps help Lakshmi find her way into people’s homes.

Head chef Simon Burns prepared traditional Indian dishes including a range of warming curries, spicy samosas, crispy bhajis and poppadum’s with lime pickle and chutneys followed by traditional Indian sweets such as laddoo and barfi for the residents to enjoy. Activities Coordinator Claudia prepared special Sizzling Non-Alcoholic drinks including Cherry ginger Ice Tea, Pineapple Cobbler, Cucumber Mojito followed by traditional snacks to serve at the Diwali Party and we have been honoured by Rosie a lovely Bollywood dancer who show our residents some brilliant moves.

We had a lovely time joining Chef Alex Connell from Vegetarian for Life for a Halloween-inspired virtual cooking demo.

Alex demonstrated how to prepare a few themed dishes, such as root vegetable tagine, roasted butternut squash mac-n-cheese, chocolate pots with piped biscuits and flapjacks.

Our residents were delighted to be a part of this lovely virtual culinary session by tasting the vegetarian dishes from the comfort of our home.

The High Sheriff of Cheshire, Robert Mee has visited Barchester’s Oak Grange Care Home, in Mollington to talk about his duties and responsibilities and to acknowledge the important and invaluable role of the care settings throughout the pandemic.

High Sheriff Robert Mee joined residents of the home for a high tea dinner in which he gave us a talk of his duties and responsibilities, and he also applaud the great effort of the care setting during the hard times that everyone has been living throughout the pandemic.

High Sheriff Robert Mee talk was of great interest to everyone, Resident Mary said: “It was so interesting to learn about the history of the role and the dedication to the County role of High Sheriff entails!”

We had a great time joining journalist and novelist, Mike Gayle, for an intriguing virtual interview, during which he shared top tips for creative writing with our residents and read passages from his latest book, All the Lonely People.

We were thrilled to find out about Mike’s background, to understand what led him to become a writer and his creative process.

It was a lovely talk, enjoyed by all, especially by our keen writers at the home.