Activities at Winchester House Care Home

Winchester House Care Home enjoyed a rather unusual encounter while at work this week.

We were overwhelmed by having a visit from Mark and his therapy duck Goldie, who is two and a half years of age.

Mark and Goldie are quite the celebrities around the Medway towns, as they do a lot of work for a variety of charities, raising money, also visiting schools and care homes.

The chance of meeting this celebrity duck bought a light-hearted moment into all our lives this week as he brought so many smiles to all the residents and staff faces.

Mark introduced Goldie as he walked around the room, allowing the residents to hold or stroke him, he even waddled around the room himself, allowing people to see him. He was also very photogenic. This was an unusual animal to bring in, but also amazed at how much joy he brought to Winchester House.    

As we have been unable to go out as the weather has been so terrible, on Sunday the sun was shining so we had a great idea to jump on the mini bus and enjoy the bright weather.

We were driving through the local village and noticed an indoor boot fair taking place so we hopped off the mini bus and had a browse around the stalls.

It was a lovely outing which the residents really enjoyed!              

This year was the first year that Winchester House celebrated Burns Night as we rarely have any residents or staff that are Scottish or have Scottish heritage.

But this year we did, so we went all out to celebrate the day in style.

Our talented Chef made the Sunday menu all around Scottish food, Haggis, Tatties etc, we even had the residents trying iron brew, we made and also enjoyed eating Scottish shortbread.

In the afternoon we were all treated to come along to listen to some wonderful music with Bagpipes, one of our residents who is Scottish absolutely loved this, it made his day and couldn’t thank the activity staff enough for what we had arranged for everyone.   

We are lucky enough to have a wonderful lady called Clare from Kiddley Dive, visit us every two months. Clare’s passion is working with the elderly community, and it certainly shines through when she visits.

Clare has been coming to Winchester House for about a year now, and she brings so much joy and happiness to our residents. She has got to know them all through the past year and all their names, and also what exercises they like to do and  what music they enjoy listening to. Clare certainly livens up the room as soon as she walks in, not just that, our residents smile with joy when they see her.

As we have just had our last session with Clare until the new year, we made it a very lively session, with lots of dancing and singing. All the residents, staff and families had a fantastic morning. 

Celebrating Halloween at Winchester House is always a fun event, as so many staff members and residents join in and get involved with the celebrations.

We started our spooky-inspired day with arts and crafts, creating some decorations for the home. We then treated all our community with delicious hot chocolate, with cream and marshmallows and cake. They all indulged themselves in the trolley full of treats.

In the afternoon, we set up a Halloween tea party for all our communities to enjoy. With music and food, some of our ladies danced away the afternoon, singing and having fun.

We had the best day celebrating Halloween!  

To honour the Scottish poet, Robert Burns, we immersed ourselves in poetry throughout the day.

We also enjoyed the beautiful sounds of the bagpipes around the home, which our residents thoroughly enjoyed. Our talented chef put on a special Scottish menu, including haggis, tatties and shortbread.

What a great time we all had celebrating Robert Burns and the Scottish culture.

Staff and residents have been cooped up for far too long at Winchester House, unable to go out as the weather has been so terrible, but on Sunday the sun was shining, so we had a great idea to just jump on the bus and go out and enjoy the nice weather that we were having, even if it was just the morning.

Activity staff and residents didn’t know where we were going to end up. As we were driving through one of our local villages, we noticed an indoor boot fair going on in the village hall, so we stopped and thought it would be nice to have a browse around the stalls.

Well, what an impromptu trip it was. We had great fun, walking around and talking to all the stallholders, they engaged so much with our residents, took the time out to talk to them and show them what they were selling.

A fantastic morning we all had, especially as it was spur of the moment.    

We held our very own Christmas Market here at Winchester House over the weekend, and what a fantastic day we all had.

We had friends and family come along with residents to browse around the many stalls that we had. We had cake stall, Christmas decorations, jewellery, hand-crafted decorations and even a tombola.

We even had our very own chef that made homemade mince pies and sausage rolls for everyone to enjoy, and they did enjoy indulging in these sweet and savoury snacks that he made especially for us all.

We also had a surprise visit from Santa himself, which brought so many smiles to our faces. The staff even had the chance to sit on Santa’s knee and have a photo with him. We can't thank Santa enough for taking the time out to come and visit everyone at Winchester House.

A fantastic day was had by, and it certainly got us all in the Christmas Spirit.   

A truly moving visit to our local church, All Saints Wouldham Church for Remembrance Sunday.

We were welcomed by so many local people, old and new, and we joined in with the prayers and the hymns.

Our residents were touched to see all the wreaths of poppies that had been made by all the local people in the village. We also stood outside to hear the reverend mention all the names of the fallen soldiers that we had lost.        

One of the very talented residents has been playing all kinds of instruments all his life, and still enjoys playing for all the staff and residents. That particular day, he tried teaching the violin to Gwen, one of our ladies from the local church, who visits our residents on a regular basis.

They both had a fun afternoon playing and laughing together. Gwen had always said that she would like to play an instrument, so Alan, our resident, took it upon himself to try and teach her a few notes. 

We Celebrated National Pizza day in style here at Winchester House. We first took a trip to our local supermarket to buy ingredients for making our very own pizzas.

Our residents came back and rolled up their sleeves to craft their own pizzas which they enjoyed for lunch!      

As it was National Pizza Day, we thought we would revolve the day around Pizza.

We started our day by going to our local supermarket with some of our residents to buy all the ingredients that we needed to make our very own pizzas, which our residents thoroughly enjoyed, as they hadn’t visited a supermarket in a long while.

We then went back to Winchester House to make the pizzas, which were great fun. Our residents thoroughly enjoyed doing this and having them for their lunch.

A fantastic day had by all.

On the 3rd of December, the staff at Winchester House swapped their uniforms for Elf costumes, in aid of Elf day, and to help and raise awareness for Alzheimer’s society. Eld day was created to sprinkle some festive cheer on fundraising towards finding a cure for dementia.

The naughty elves went around the building, being cheeky and making all our community laugh and smile. Our communities wanted to have their photos taken with the naughty elves as well.

Throughout the day, our residents and staff were finding little sweet treats that were hidden around the home by the naughty elves, and we also played themed games and activities with our residents.

A fantastic day was had by all staff and residents.      

We have been lucky enough to have had some amazing volunteers join us here at Winchester House.

These amazing people came in over two days and worked their socks off to help clean up our gardens and balconies to be ready for the winter. They also spend time getting to know our residents, talking to them and playing games.

They said that it was a pleasure and would love to be invited back to Winchester House to do more volunteer work.  

We took some ladies out on a shopping trip to our local shopping centre. This was a particularly special trip as one of our ladies had not had the opportunity to attend a mini bus trip before, as its been very difficult for her, So with the help and support of the teams we gathered together to make it a very memorable outing.

Jeans favourite sandwich is prawn, so of course we hunted high and low to find this for her for her lunch with a hot chocolate. We also looked around clothes shops and looked at the seasonal items in shops. We couldn’t go without buying some chocolate for all the ladies for there journey home.

Our ladies said this was the best day they have had in a long time, along with the fun and laughter we had all day and of course making special memories.