Activities at Thistle Hill Care Home

Residents and staff at Thistle Hill enjoyed a Summer Fete held in the home’s grounds.  Thistle Hill hosted a variety of activities throughout the day, including classic fair games that were enjoyed by reisdents and staff on the day.

One Resident said, “I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was surrounded by my friends, and the refreshments kept flowing. The weather held out until we finished. Staff did a great job, not just on the day, but organising the event and entertainment.”

Mandy Scott General Manager said: “Staff at Thistle Hill are dedicated to making sure that our summer fete is a real treat for all. Residents enjoyed some delightful entertainment”

At Thistle Hill we love our dogs and we held our very own virtual dog show for residents, family, and friends to shared their furry friends with us all too. 

Dogs have fun loveable quirks, tricks and general gorgeousness. So, over the last few weeks we held our first ever virtual dog show at Thistle Hill where we had a whole host of fun categories.

Photos of dogs with the category were entered and emailed to thistlehill.activities@barchester.com Categories included the following, Best Dressed, Happiest Smile, Best in show, Best Trick/pose, Sleeping Beauty, Bravest belle and Waggiest Tail

Group judging by dog-loving staff and residents at Thistle Hill took place on, 3rd August with photos displayed on a board for our expert panel of resident judges to study and choose the winners in their respective categories.

Residents of Thistle Hill set sail on a virtual cruise and sailed to an array of different locations including South Africa, Italy, Malta, the islands of Greece where they stopped off for some games on the beach and by request sailed on to the American coastline and made it back just in time for dinner!

Using the homes projector, big screen and Wi-Fi video streaming our residents were able to experience the virtual cruise in a whole new way, been able to see and hear the locations they were visiting.

Each country allowed our residents to discuss and reminisce about holidays and adventures from times gone by as well as have a song and dance to music based on the country they were visiting. Hazel said “I spent a lot of my adult life, living in South Africa and it was just lovely to go and see it all over again”

General Manager Mandy Scott said “it is so important to offer a variety of activities to our residents, the virtual cruise was a great example of this. They had a lovely time and they can’t wait to set sail again”

Not to be deterred by our countries intermittent weather, Residents of Thistle Hill attended an indoor picnic as part of the great get together community event. A whole host of treats were laid on to celebrate including scones, biscuits and cakes.   The fun didn’t stop there as some of the other delights on offer included chilled wine and refreshing juices

Mandy Scott General Manager at the home, said: “The great get together is a special event as it reminds our residents they are a part of a community and they loved having the excuse to take part in a fun indoor picnic in the lounge, we won’t let the rain stop us celebrating! In these unprecedented times, we are continually finding new ways to make sure every effort is focused on creating an enjoyable environment for all of our residents, whilst adhering to social distancing advice.”

.Residents and staff at Thistle hill care home in Knaresborough were at the ready for Wimbledon with delicious strawberries and cream, which was due to run from 29th June - 12th July.

Tennis fans at Thistle Hill were delighted by this and were able to enjoy the event from the comfort of their own armchair. Residents and staff got together to watch the matches, and also celebrated by playing balloon tennis before proceeding onto having a themed party with food, music, decoration and afternoon tea with a choice of scones or strawberry and cream.

At Thistle Hill there was jokes and fun a plenty as memory lane laughed in the month of July by celebrating ‘International Joke Day’. Our residents were welcomed into a made up comedy club environment, with photos laid out showing comedians of yesteryear for some easy reminiscing.

The residents were eased in to a morning of hilarity by watching classic sketches by the fabulous greats, Norman Wisdom and Sid James.  After this our residents were treated to a specially recorded stand up performance by Farnham resident Martin Askew.

At our coffee mornings, Martin’s humour always draws laughs a plenty and the residents of memory lane were in stitches watching his performance on the big screen. It was certainly the highlight of a colourful morning.