Activities at South Chowdene Care Home

Staff and residents at South Chowdene Care home in Low Fell welcomed in the Year of the Dragon with a day of celebrations and activities.

Inspired by Chinese culture and traditions, residents crafted their own dragons, one including the outline of a hand of each resident and member of staff in the home, so that everyone was included. A virtual Dragon Parade was shown and residents became the virtual judging panel for a Lion dance competition. Residents learnt all about the traditions and superstitions of Chinese New Year, Chef Michelle cooked up an oriental feast for lunch and residents enjoyed traditional Chinese snacks during the Chinese Quiz.

Staff and residents at Barchester’s South Chowdene Care Home in Low Fell got out their binoculars and bird books to support this year’s Big Garden Birdwatch initiative.

The RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch is an annual event to try to understand what is happening to our native birds. The idea is to log all the birds you see in your garden, from your window or in your local park in a one hour period any time between January 26th and 28th.  In 2023 over half a million people took part and between them they counted 9 million birds.  Sadly we have lost over 38 million birds from the UK skies in the last 60 years so it is vital we do all we can to protect our birdlife.

Across our services residents had a fantastic time during a special live virtual event, led by Emilia from Medical Detection Dogs. Emilia took us on a journey to discover how the organisation began training dogs to support people with complex health conditions, saving their lives on a daily basis.

Using their amazing sense of smell, these dogs can identify odour changes emitted prior an episode and alert the person to take preventative action.

We were introduced to the wonderful dogs and the science behind the sniff.  It was a delightful experience for everyone, especially our canine-loving residents.

Residents had a great time finding out about how Braille came about, the different versions – even for musicians. We had a look at the Pantheon where he is buried and remembered in Paris although his hands are still in his home town! Later we had a go at writing our own names in Braille and some got onto some more complicated sentences too!

We weren’t able to celebrate Elvis Presley’s 89th birthday on 8th January but we did mark the occasion in style today as Mike Memphis entertained us in the lunge working through all the Elvis eras and ensuring everyone felt special. Edna said ‘ I didn’t like Elvis himself that much as a teenager but his music grew on me and this afternoon has brought back so many memories. We’ve all had a brilliant time reminiscing about our dance hall days’.

On Flower Day, we had the pleasure of Sue Whitfield’s expertise from ‘Flowers by Sue’ in Birtley. Having completed a Flower recognition challenge and quiz during the morning, Sue expanded on what we had learnt and  took us through how to put a large display together using Gerberer, Yellow Rose, Chrysanthemum and September flowers. This brought a lot of discussion about flowers we used to use un displays and how genetic modification has produced the flowers more regularly used nowadays. We also watched her pit together a basket display including Freesia Eucalyptus, Rose of Sharon, Hypericum and Skimia. Thank you so much Sue for bringing all those memories back and educating us at the same time.