Activities at Tixover House Care Home

As we left the home, we witnessed a beautiful sunset over our neighbouring fields to our home. Tinwell Forge is a must see spectacular, turning their home into a grotto! We parked the mini bus directly outside and our residents were chatting away and pointing out their favourite features of the display!

This year they are fundraising for MNDA, it's worth a check-out and a visit to their JG-page! We took a tour through Stamford, through Red Lion Square, the high street, high street shop displays, The George of Stamford and then looped back through Eastern On The Hill.

This will definitely become a Tixover tradition!

What a fun activity in our Memory Lane community this afternoon! Thank you to Morrisons , Stamford, for including this as one of their recent donations to our home. 

All residents in our community were involved in every step of this process, either through adding items to the design or admiring and commenting on the house. We have taken the gingerbread house across the home for 'show and tell' too, adding enrichment to residents throughout our home. 

We love baking activities within our home, and we increase the volume of these activities around Christmas. Christmas reminisces through the making of mince pies, Stir up Sunday and the decorating of the Christmas cake for the Barchester Christmas cake competition, lots of sensory elements of Christmas.’        

Everyone at Tixover swapped their uniforms for costumes on National Elf Day (Wednesday, December 3rd) in an effort to raise funds to help people living with dementia.

On the day, residents and staff at Tixover House Care Home were able to enjoy elf-themed games, including a Christmas quiz and elf-bingo paired with a festive-themed spread as the team at the home donned their elfish apparel.

Peter Hankins a resident of the home said: “It is always a very festive day and the staff always make us laugh in their costumes. What a wonderful way to raise money for charity!”

We took a drive out in our mini bus to see the remembrance displays in surrounding villages, taking in Kingscliffe, Easton On The Hill and Duddington. Denise was fabulous on this trip, whilst Caroline drove, detailing lots of history of the locality and reading through all the remembrance displays to our residents. They all confirmed that the trip had been really fascinating. 

Our home really enjoys driving out in the mini-bus, as opposed to necessarily one location. We get to cover so much on one outing. We share a lot through conversation and reminiscing and, through doing so, get to know one another in much more detail.     

Wow, what a day! We enjoyed an Italian-themed coffee morning, making Venetian masks and Italian travel and trivia. We still have the mosaic art to do as simply too many activities on our themed day, such as dressing the home for our care awards party and wearing it pink day too. 

The Head Chef prepared an exquisite lunch: starter – tomato and basil soup or caprese salad, main – beef lasagne or chicken mantecate and dessert – tiramisu or fruit mousse, with accompanying wine and spirits. The residents all clapped Tony at the end of lunch service. Thank you to the staff team who helped across the day! 

A huge thank you to our staff who delivered Christmas within our home, to Activities Jessica and to Karina's husband, David, who year after year becomes our Santa and delivers presents to every resident within our home.

We had a fabulous time in our home, but Christmas continues with plenty planned in the lead up to New Year. Thank you to each and every one of you!

Merry Christmas!

Massive thank you to Activities friend Rachel, who kindly brought Marley in again to visit our Nursing Community. Marley is a regular, much loved feature of our home. Rachel dressed Marley in a Christmas outfit too. Although this soon came off because of the warmth of our home, Rachel still showed the outfit to our residents and was met with much happiness through doing so, “Hello baby, I think you’re gorgeous” and “What a dear little face, hello, let me see you.” 

We also sang and danced to Christmas songs at the foot of our resident's beds to their delight, asking for their song requests and dutifully trying our best to sing them, adding to really wholesome room visits bringing a lot of joy to our residents. There is a lot of pet therapy in our home and Christmas is no exception, with visiting cats and dogs and Zoolab creepy crawlies and, of course of residents' loved ones bringing their pets to our communal areas of the home. Your pets are very welcome within our walls!     

Pudsey crafting within our home. This was designed by one of our new creative residents, starting out from a simple picture on a napkin! This was loved by the table completing the creative and by all of our residents, as it was displayed centrally in our Main Dining Room. 

As a follow-up, the completed Pudsey was taken round all the communal areas of the home and room visits too as a bedside activity. Also, within our Coffee Morning, our Activities team incorporated a ‘guess the children in need fundraising total.’  

We were so fortunate to have a first visit from Rachel and her cat Marley. Rachel has visited our home previously and spent time chatting with our residents. On this occasion, being Marley's first visit to the home, he spent time with all of our residents in our Nursing Community. 

There are lots of residents across the home who are yet to meet Marley and are looking forward to the next pet therapy visit. Thank you once again Rachel! 

Katherine Smith at Tixover House in Rutland has beaten all the competition to be crowned National ‘Dementia Champion of the Year’ in the Barchester Care Awards 2025.

The Barchester Care Awards celebrate the staff who go the extra mile for the benefit of the 13,500 residents living in Barchester’s 268 care homes and private hospitals across the country. Categories range from ‘Team of the Year’ and ‘Carer of the Year’ to ‘Dementia Care Champion’ and ‘Activities Coordinator of the Year’.

More than 5,250 nominations were received from homes and hospitals across the UK. All entries were a very high standard and Katherine is over the moon to have been named the national winner, beating hundreds of other nominees to the coveted title.

Another fabulous outing for our residents, hot refreshments, lemon drizzle and croissants! We were pleased we got to see their magnificent tree too! Start letting the activities team know your wishes for outings for the coming year. We will be finding out where everyone wants to go and wish fulfilments too!! Thank you for all your help.

We had a splendid outing to see the Christmas displays at the Gates. They were pretty phenomenal! We enjoyed being by the fire in one of the cafés, having coffees and cakes, seeing the Christmas trees, ornaments, displays and sensory gift items. It was great to be within the hustle and bustle of Christmas, it was so busy, with chatter and laughter and people going about their Christmas shopping, whilst many still took the time to say a cheery hello and speak with our residents. 

One resident particularly enjoyed seeing children’s excitement looking round the displays, stopping and speaking with their parents and laughing happily at their mannerisms. It was great to have the fresh air walks between buildings and across our morning, we covered so many areas of shopping and topics of conversation. Another wonderfully festive outing for our residents to enjoy during this special season.   

Our Dementia Champion Kathy and her husband Colin took it upon themselves to give our Memory Lane courtyard and rose gardens a good tidy up and fill our flower pots with colour. Here are just a few of the photos taken during the activity. The activity crossed the whole home within the day. 

Thank you both for your initiative and kindness. This has added a lot of life enrichment to our residents! A resident said the following: “It’s definitely improved. It will be interesting to see how the growth of the garden turns out. We can watch the flowers grow. I am very keen on flowers and non-hard work gardening. The tidying of the garden is excellent. I am not going to be worried about tripping over or anything.”    

This fabulous trio recently spent their day creating Halloween decorations for our home. We gave them the tools, and they came up with the inspiration! 

The decorations have really brightened up our home and been great from an intergenerational activity perspective. We are so grateful for what they brought to our home!! Our residents love having the home filled with children and, on top of this, having brightly coloured-themed décor to enjoy for our Halloween Tea Dance event within our home and the change of seasons; bringing the outside inside the home.

Our carer, Praveena, kindly thought of this creative idea for our home and delivered it to our residents. Just look how beautiful the finished product is! Well done Praveena, it was greatly received by our residents and has brought much pleasure for those who have observed the vase of flowers in the days following. 

We have had many creatives of late, linked to flowers. Our residents enjoyed the Indian Miniature Painting and in celebration of National Art in Care Homes Day, joined Holly from the V&A Learning team and designer-artist Rafin Jannat in this live make-along. We actively promote our staff team to share their interests and skills with our residents, adding to the variety of our life enrichment for our residents, filling our home with such vibrant colours.