Activities at Wheatlands Care Home

During October half term we like to invite our residents grandchildren, great grandchildren and local children for our annual pumpkin carving competition. It’s a chance for our residents and families to get together and enjoy a fun activity for all to enjoy. The room was filled full of fun and laughter and our residents enjoyed reminiscing about yesteryears. Una enjoyed having young Florence to help her carve the pumpkin whilst telling her much she enjoyed making pumpkin soup when she was younger and then saved the seeds to feed the birds on her family’s farm.

What started off as an innocent conversation at the monthly soup lunch turned into a person centred, life enriching experience for one of our residents Albert. Albert carried out his national service in Cyprus and ever since he has been supporting the Royal British Legion in numerous ways one of which has been selling poppies in his home town of Cleobury Mortimer.

Albert asked if there was any way in which he was able to continue with his support of Royal British Legion we were able to get in touch with our local Much Wenlock Poppy Appeal and arrange for Albert to continue with his dedication and support of such a wonderful cause that’s dear to all our hearts.

As soon as Albert put his uniform and medals on you could see how much it meant to him and the pride he felt, despite the cold Albert manned the local stall in the town centre to help raise vital funds. He enjoyed chatting to the local community about his time he served.

Beryl and Wendy enjoyed a fabulous morning walking around Percy Thrower’s garden centre looking at all the fragrant flowers and beautiful plants after which we admired the fabulous pumpkin and Christmas displays. After all the excitement we needed a sit down and it was hot chocolates and cappuccinos all round where residents reminisced about their own gardens. Beryl told everyone ‘My husband used to bud roses and we would go all around the country to show them, thank you for brining me’

Residents at Wheatlands love to watch live entertainment after putting a request of facebook to see if anyone from the local community would like to come and perform we were inundated with offers. We were lucky enough to have  ‘Belly Up’ a local belly dance group come and dance for us. After their fabulous performance the dancers offered to teach residents and staff a few moves ‘It’s a lot hard than it looks’ said Christine. The performance was especially important for one of our residents Ergin who is of Turkish decent he cried tears of happiness through the performance as he reminisced about his childhood years it was made even more special as his wife joined him for the performance and then they enjoyed taking part at the end and showing us their moves. Ergin’s wife Christine thanked us as they were able to make beautiful memories together.

Albert has always been a lover of gardening, and keeping a  well-tended  garden has been of the up most importance and ensuring the correct jobs where done at the right time of year. Over the past few months Albert has been pruning roses, weeding and generally helping to get the grounds ready for the winter.

Albert thought the front of the grounds was not as colourful as it could be in the spring months so we brought a variety of spring bulbs which he enjoyed planting he is looking forward to seeing them grow. ‘When I see my first daffodil, I know the summer is just round the corner.’ Albert said.

Family, friends and the local community joined residents and staff for our annual family fun day, luckily enough the rain held off and the sun popped out just in time so we could all enjoy the afternoon and make some wonderful memories together.

We a traditional carnival theme with several stalls including a residents craft stall with an array of goods on off from homemade plum jam to handmade lavender bags, hook a duck, a tombola with some fantastic prizes donated by friends, family and the local community. James a night time carer here at Wheatlands and finalist of Telford’s got Talent sang the afternoon away. We also had a good old fashioned coconut shy Christine was over the moon when she manged to knock not one but two coconuts off she said the best part was she got to eat them.