Activities at The Cedars Bourne Care Home

We had a brilliant time across our services with Harrogate Skills 4 Living as they took us on a wonderful virtual visit to their Harrogate Chocolate Factory.

Residents were thrilled to discover details about the chocolate-making process and the fascinating journey from bean to bar, all while enjoying some delicious sweet treats.

The Factory aims to employ people with learning disabilities and autism, involving them in all parts of the process, from sorting and roasting the beans to packaging and sales. The experience was truly enjoyed by all who joined this event.

We had a wonderful time today welcoming our feathered friends from Parrots and Pirates as a group of Macaws came to visit the home. Residents at The Cedars  were thrilled to see the beautiful birds both in the Garden Lounge and in individual bedrooms. Every resident was given the opportunity to feed and hold the birds; as well as being treated to a display of tricks and flight that wowed them all.

Three parrots visited us with their owners- Inca, a ten year old green winged Macaw (the second largest breed of parrot); Aurora, a blue throated parrot from Bolivia (whose species is critically endangered) and Mishka, a Catalina Macaw. Residents were interested to learn about the different birds- did you know that a parrots feathers are like fingerprints and are completely unique to each bird; and each parrot has the intelligence of a three-four year old child?

We continue to celebrate a varied life enrichment programme and across our services we linked up with other Barchester care homes and hospitals up and down the country for some interactive Beat the Clock games. 

Our residents truly enjoyed solving word puzzles, conundrums and mathematical problems as part of Barchester’s very own game show series.

Everyone who joined had a fantastic time and enjoyed some friendly competition.

Celebrations have been in full swing at our home as one of its residents reached 102 years in style.

Ronald Priest celebrated his birthday surrounded by family, friends, residents and staff. Ron enjoyed a special birthday lunch with his daughter and friends, freshly prepared by Chef Richard, with a glass of bubbly to toast the day.  Ron and his family and friends then joined other residents for a quiz afternoon finished with a fabulous birthday cake and lots of birthday wishes.

We had a lot of fun exploring water colour painting this month with Activity Assistant Lisa.

It's a hard medium to master but with some great books explaining how to slowly build up a picture, we all created some fantastic paintings. Barbara was so thrilled and couldn't believe what she was able to accomplish. Marjorie totally surprised herself saying, ‘I'm no artist but that was really enjoyable’. With such positive feedback, this activity will now be a regular on our schedule.

This month we had a wonderful visit from Karen, a local Florist, who gave us a tutorial to create a sweet Easter flower arrangement.  We used little cream buckets, beautiful flowers and Agra wool; (an environmentally friendly alternative to oasis blocks).

The colours of the blooms in blues, purples and pale lemons along with the striking green foliage made some amazing creations. Karen explained the names of the flowers she had chosen and why, and demonstrated how to arrange them for the best effect. No one could believe they were actually allowed to keep them!