Our care home residents had a fantastic time at our Coffee Morning gathering led by Jen last week.

Our volunteer Jen is organising a session each week to talk about our residents’ “favourite things” and on Monday it was all about holiday memories – we shared stories that brought smiles to everyone’s faces. John told us that one of the best places he’d visited was Botswana and Joan told us that she loved Venice as it was “such a beautiful place”. Birgit said that she had lived in lots of different countries, but Norway was her favourite. Muriel said that she had been abroad in many different places but “Scotland is my favourite, especially around the Borders. The scenery is stunning”

We then chatted about where everyone had gone on their honeymoons – Muriel, Colin and Joan mentioned the Lake District, Cornwall and Scotland. John amazed us by saying he remembered taking his own car on his honeymoon to Spain by driving it through the nose of an aeroplane – apparently this was a very common thing to do!

Thank you to Jen for organising these sessions – they’re great fun and very lively!

A group of residents, staff members and volunteers visited the Wentworth Centre in Hexham for a game of ten pin bowling this month. Everyone spent time choosing their perfect bowling ball ready for the games to start and had a lot of fun competing against one another and laughing at each other’s attempts. Claire said “yabba dabba doo!” as she pushed the ball down the ramp. Margaret G told us that she thought it was a fabulous experience and Margaret S was chuffed that she won her game. Birgit would like to go bowling again and Valerie told us “I wasn’t expecting that much exercise, but I’ve really enjoyed myself”.  After the bowling session we visited the Adapt Community Cafe for a coffee and a slice of cake. Thank you to all our volunteers and staff members who came along – it was an exhilarating and very fun morning!

Our residents have had a lot of fun painting and decorating memory boxes to hold special photos and items as a reminiscing and crafting activity.

Everyone was given a wooden box to paint plus a variety of materials to work with, including beach stones, paper and silk flowers, ribbon, stickers and pretty card. The residents collected all the items they wanted to put in the box, including old letters, family photos, newspaper and magazine clippings, postcards and their favourite crafts.

Day care resident Isobel showed us some beautiful crochet squares that she’d made along with her family photos. She said, “those are my photos and crafts that I want to put in – I’ve painted the box blue”. Muriel made a design using some tiny beach stones and pink flower petals and said, “there’s quite a bit of glue but it looks lovely. I’m just waiting for it to dry.” Volunteer Jen joined in with the session and helped Margaret paint her memory box bright yellow with lots of glittery stars and stickers.

The boxes will take a few sessions to finish but the activity has been great fun so far and has inspired a lot of interesting chat on the people and experiences in our residents’ lives.

Pam, our Registered Manager, brought in an interesting item to show everybody at a coffee morning last week. She was given an example of a 24-hour ration pack for a British soldier, and thought it was a great opportunity for our residents to look through contents of the pack. Sally, the Marketing Manager and Laura, a Domestic Assistant, helped share the contents so that everyone could see.

Our residents were fascinated by how everything was carefully packed including matches, energy drinks, meals and snacks. Sally explained how one pack was designed to sustain a solider out on a 24 hour exercise, and the meals were nutritious and easy to eat but definitely lack something in the presentation department!

Claire tasted the oat biscuits and said “they’re quite nice – dry but still tasty”. Muriel sampled the cheese spread, and said it was “smooth and a bit plasticky”, whilst Colin happily ate the peanuts and chatted about how rations had changed since the 2nd World War. Our day care resident Arthur talked about how soldiers heated up their meals in the trenches in World War 1 which led onto a group discussion about how soldiers boil water for tea or coffee whilst out in the field.

Thank you to Pam for bringing in the rations – they gave our residents a glimpse into military life, as well as being a great way to spark conversation and learn more about their experiences.