Activities at Westvale House Care Home

Westvale House decided to celebrate a resident’s 99th birthday with a twist, by inviting her old Brownie group to join the celebrations. Eunice Stobbie was a Brownie leader for many years at St Marys in Widnes, so to honour her 99th birthday the team at invited along members of her old Brownie troop to come along and celebrate with her.

Some of Eunice’s guests included current Brownie leaders, Helen Wall and Marie Grace, along with past leaders and assistants Gwen Nuttie, Christine O’Sullivan, Christine O’Conner and Chris Hill. Some of the Brownies themselves even came along, as well as Eunice’s son Andy.

Eunice enjoyed her cake and hot beverages with her guests and was showered with lovely gifts and tales of when they all worked together. After flicking through the photo albums and singing some old campfire songs, Eunice renewed her brownie promise and received two new badges to wear with pride. They even brought along a toadstool that Eunice had made for the children in her days as a leader, which she remembered and was absolutely thrilled to see was still being used!

When asked what she thought of the day, Eunice said: “it was such a lovely surprise, I will have a day to remember for a very long time.”

Much like the rest of the world, we have been celebrating love at Westvale this week!

We have filled our beautiful home with hearts and flowers and enjoyed love songs, which brought back some treasured memories for many of our lovely residents. We started the day delivering Valentine's gifts to every one of our beautiful residents, which were handmade by one of our nurses and so appreciated by everyone.

The gift giving was followed by a special Valentine's themed bingo with prizes including chocolate and wine, which went down a treat! We finished the day on a high, with our very own 'restaurant', set up especially for residents to have a special meal with their nearest and dearest. Our Activities Coordinator Joanne decorated our conservatory with such care, it was unrecognisable! We had couples, fathers and daughters, and friends all dining in our restaurant and all had such a special evening. It's safe to say love was definitely in the air!

Here at Westvale House we prepared a traditional Burns Night feast to the tune of bagpipes!

To get the spirits going in the morning, we had a wonderful piper come and play some traditional tunes that lit up the faces of our residents, who resonated with the classic sounds or recognised the tunes. He did a lap of our grounds and then performed for our residents indoors. It was a beautiful sight to see some of them flash back to their youth or embrace their heritage! To honour the famous Scottish poet throughout the afternoon, we also hosted a poetry and music session.

Finally, to mark the Scottish institution, we also gave the time-honoured address to the ‘Great chieftain O’ the pudding’ race’ – the haggis. Our residents enjoyed delicious Haggis, Neeps and Tatties and Traditional Hot Pot, prepared by our talented chef.

We all had a wonderful time learning more about Robert Burns and the Scottish culture and traditions.

Across our services, our 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.

Our lovely new Activities Co-ordinator, Joanne, has got well and truly acquainted with our residents the last couple of weeks! We're all so grateful to have her around.

So much so, that she became a bit of a target in our parachute games this week! Our residents had a wonderful time making shapes and rhythms with the giant parachute, which is also a great activity to get the body moving.

Halfway through, Joanne decided to pop up in the middle where there was space, and become the moving target for residents with beanbags! Some of them were a bit shy, but others truly embraced the game and made sure their aim was perfect! It was a great laugh, and a brilliant games session.

Our home was transformed into Graceland to mark what would have been Elvis Presley’s birthday on 8th January.

It is estimated that Elvis has sold over one billion records worldwide so to honour the undisputed King of Rock & Roll, we all enjoyed a fantastic day of music, fun and dancing.

Our residents found out some interesting facts about Elvis that they haven’t heard before, watched a short biography about the famous singer and actor and listened to some of Elvis’s hits.

We all had a wonderful day.