Activities at South Chowdene Care Home

An Administrator at South Chowdene Care Home in Low Fell has received a prestigious Long Service Award in celebration of working at Barchester Healthcare for 15 years. 

Clare Lambert, now Administrator started at Barchester in November 2008 and has worked with residents and their relatives to ensure that their needs have been met over the years.

Staff, residents, relatives and the local community came together on November 26th at South Chowdene Care home in Low Fell to enjoy a wonderful Christmas Fete.

There were all kinds of stalls on offer manned by volunteers, friends and family and lots of local stall holders came along to sell their wares too.  There were delicious Mince Pies and Hot Chocolate, lovely craft items, fabulous knitwear as well as Annie the Labrador and Mandy and Grace her owners from Wag and Co. who are our regular pet therapy visitors.

Residents, staff and visitors also had a good sing along and dance to live entertainment from Paul Gowland one of our regular entertainers.

After a very funny afternoon singing traditional campfire songs and reminiscing around campfire experiences an extremely special visitor arrived to thank us for the birthday card residents had made for her.  Annie turned 13 on Bonfire day and we were honoured to be one of her visits on her trip out for the day. Unfortunately she missed the goodies residents had made for the bonfire event. The vegan gingerbread and Spiced toffee apple cake had long gone by the time she arrived.

It certainly was a happy Halloween at South Chowdene with treats galore and fantastic entertainment from Alan Cutler who made everyone balloon animals or hats, sand, did impressions but most of all had absolutely everyone in the room singing along, dancing, foot tapping and having a huge laugh. Violet really enjoyed being the ‘Lady of Laguna’ and residents had their rhythmic skills put to the test as they became the percussion section of the ‘Big Band’. Refreshments were aplenty with everyone enjoying the Spooky Mocktails some of our residents made earlier in the day.

We were very lucky to have Eva bring her Giant African snails to show us along with friend Ellie to help out. As ever, animals of this sort brought many facial expressions and there was a lot of amazement at how big they are despite only being 2 months old! We are hoping to see them again when they are fully grown to experience the adult hand sized molluscs. Residents were quite astounded as we learnt about ‘Mike and Mollie’s’ feeding habits, care required and habitat as well as having to be very gentle as their shells still aren’t hard and can easily be damaged.

Staff and residents donned purple in recognition of Alzheimer’s day. We had a look at what this terrible disease is as well as what we can do to help prevent onset. Residents have been choreographing and practising a new ‘Pom dance’ to ‘Thank you for being a friend’ to exercise body, brain and coordination and today was performance time! There were some excellent scores in a general knowledge quiz and the afternoon saw a very competitive ‘Tissue tennis’ tournament keeping the lightning reactions in tip top condition. Our lovely volunteer Jayne brought us matching purple prizes to complete the day.