Activities at Oaklands Care Home

A new favourite at Oaklands which has proven popular with our gentlemen is the busy boards giving them an opportunity to be busy whilst still being manly.

The boards offer a variety of interactive buttons, switches, lights and screws.

The resident has to use their hand eye co-ordination to screw in screws and tighten the bolts and turn the keys and it has given our gentleman great satisfaction whilst having fun and keeping busy.

Here at Oaklands, we try to make our residents wishes come true no matter how big or small.

Jackie has always loved Cliff Richard and asked if we could celebrate his birthday, so that’s what we done, the day before we gathered pictures together and talked about him and Jackie helped make a picture board which was displayed in her lounge the whole of his birthday.

And on the day we enjoyed watching him in concert via a DVD and ate cake, sang Happy birthday then the party started and Jackie was up on her feet dancing with her friends enjoying his music.

A great day was had by all.

We have begun the Christmas festivities with starting to make our Christmas cakes here at Oaklands, we have made no less than 5 cakes, one for each of our community’s, one for our neighbours and one for our Christmas fair.

We were delighted that everyone who passed by said how wonderful the smells were that we were creating from the whiskey the fruit was soaked in to the cherries we were chopping and orange zest. As you can see it was a real team effort with everyone helping and helping each other when tasks were challenging single handed .The conversations were flowing about recipes our granny’s would do, how they would do and then the all important how we decorate our cakes!!

That will be in the next few weeks when we reveal our decorated cakes.

Our most recent paint and plonk session was Autumn themed and to say the red wine was enjoyed, would be an understatement, we will definitely be buying that red wine again!!

Residents can enjoy a tipple and a chance to chat and relax whilst creating a piece of art work. Some just join for the wine and company and that's just perfect! Some residents even go on to create masterpieces that we are then able to display within the home for everyone to enjoy.

Bring on the next one!

We were recently treated to a trip out to the Cambridge United Football Club Dementia Café, which is held monthly. The group was brought to us by one of our families who used to attend regularly before coming to live with us in the Care Home. 

The café represents and supports people living with dementia and their carers’, or even just carers coming together to support each other, share stories and engage in puzzles, singing and playing games whilst enjoying a cuppa and a cake. 

The host Jake, is fantastic, very friendly, caring and always offers support to all. He shows a real interest in making sure everyone is happy.

We were privileged this month to get a match side tour, which was amazing! We walked through the door that the teams use to walk out onto the pitch and we watched the groundsmen preparing the pitch for their upcoming game. Sarah talked about her husband and how he used to help with the first aid at the stadium, which lead onto a conversation about all the changes that were happening. We always leave feeling uplifted from the café events and look forward to the next.

We enjoyed a little trip out to support our local sports and social club in Bottisham and celebrated International beer day and enjoyed a cold pint or two with families and friends. The sun shone for us and made for a really pleasant afternoon for all.

Ray joked and ordered a pint of rum and coke for starters!!

All the residents and families enjoyed the change of scene and the chance it gave them to feel apart of the community.