Our new resident Birgit is a huge Scrabble and Bridge fan and loves to play these games as often as she can. Our marketing manager Sally Urwin challenged her to a game of Scrabble and discovered that Birgit is not only very good, but she’s also very competitive! Birgit is a member of the Stocksfield Bridge Club and has always loved card and board games. Unfortunately, rain stopped play, but Sally vowed to finish the game the next time she’s at work. Every member of staff, whether part of the care team or not, loves building a relationship with residents and finding out about their hobbies and interests prior to coming to Charlotte Straker House.

A group of residents visited Dobbies’ Garden Centre at Heighley Gate in Morpeth last week. The group of residents and volunteers browsed the shop and admired the summer plants, and over a delicious lunch reminisced about their own gardens and favourite plants. After lunch everyone browsed through the store and our volunteers and staff helped support them to do a little shopping in the clothes and homeware sections. Colin said “I loved the trip out, even though it was pouring with rain. The soup I had for lunch was very tasty, and it was great to have a good look round.” John told us how the rain was very heavy and “we just missed getting soaked!” when getting in and out of the bus, whilst Keith ate a slice of cream cake and said “it was delicious”. Thank you to all the volunteers and staff members who came with us on the day, and we hope they’ve finally dried out after the torrential rain!

Great excitement last week when Barney the labradoodle visited Charlotte Straker House. This lovable pup is only 18 months old, belongs to owner Kate Gordon and has been specially trained to bring joy, comfort, and companionship to our residents.

Barney is a very happy, relaxed dog and he adored meeting all of us. He loves cuddles and Kate gave out some treats so that we could reward Barney for being so friendly and polite.

It’s well-known that interactions with animals can reduce stress and anxiety and the shared experience of interacting with Barney led to a great chat about residents’ previous animals and pets.

Thank you so much to Kate and the WAG organisation for allowing Barney to visit – we can’t wait to see him again soon.

We had such a great time making soap last time we had another try on Friday!

Jodie led the session and carefully melted soap and helped residents choose fragrances to mix into the liquid. Claire chose a vibrant blue cornflower petal mix for her soap and John decided on a honeycomb bee mould for his soap mixture. Valerie decided on a lavender and frankincense fragrance and Margaret chose orange and lemon with an oatmeal base.

Jodie showed us how to dust the soap with different coloured cosmetic mica and volunteer Sue carefully coloured Margaret’s honeycomb and bee with yellow and blue mica dust.

John told us he was making his soap as a gift to his family and said he’d give it to “whoever was the dirtiest!”😊 His soap was a blue and red heart with lemon balm and rose.

Margaret told us that she chose the blue colour as “it matches my jumper and blue nail varnish!“.

Thank you to Jodie for leading the session and our staff and volunteers for helping out – the whole of Charlotte Straker House smelt wonderfully of lemon and lavender for the rest of the afternoon.