Activities at South Chowdene Care Home

This year saw a new Poppy in our lounge, made by residents who had a very chilled time sat together painting each small poppy ready to make into one large display poppy. Noel and Derek enjoyed a visit to Saltwell Park to take in the poppy display and fountain there. This gave Noel a chance to visit his Regiment monument in the park and to pay his respects. On Remembrance Day itself, residents enjoyed and joined in with a poetry recital before the 2-minute silence and then a WW1 singalong encompassing a virtual walk down ‘Lambeth Walk’.

South Chowdene residents decorated the home with self made decorations including a big witch frieze and goodies we could eat at the party – skeleton biscuits and blood and snake jelly cups. Dave Brewis came along to entertain us with spooky songs but also some of our firm favourites which had us up dancing.

Ellie and Grace are very kindly coming in to have fun with us, organising new and exciting events, chatting and having a laugh. Over half term, Grace put together a playlist which residents very much enjoyed and had a good singalong to as well as bit of a bop with the ‘Poms’. Ellie also came in to help with a ‘Beetle drive’, we love her rather colourful beetle pictures and are very much looking forward to working with both Ellie and Grace again soon.

Staff and residents welcomed community into the home for coffee/ tea and cakes raising money for Macmillan. Staff made cakes, family members also brought cakes in to help us out, Annie (our PAT dog) sent muffins in with her picture on and we managed to raise £160. A big thank you to everybody who contributed and attended. Residents very much enjoyed seeing regular visitors all together, chatting about the aims of the day as well as meeting new people.

This was a chance to reflect on how well we look after ourselves and what can be done to maintain a positive mindset especially going into winter. We kept our minds active with a quiz, exercised phisically, played balloon tennis to encourage co-ordination but the favourite was having a good laugh and going back to childhood playing with bubbles.

We always love animal visits, and this was no exception. What arrived was a huge surprise as Paul hadn’t told us what he was bringing in. As a gecko, snake, centipede (the largest on earth I think) and a tortoise came out of the boxes, there were some interesting expressions on many faces but all residents present did get closer than they thought they might and we all very much enjoyed the afternoon.