February has been a fun filled month here at Hill House, we have celebrated lots of calendar events as well as enjoying the new themed weeks, chosen by our lovely residents.
We started off the month with a bounce. Exercise doesn’t have to be boring we love to exercise and have fun at the same time, Balloon bounce always gets everyone laughing and joking about.
Birthday celebrations provide an opportunity to honour our lovely residents and let them know they are appreciated and valued. With freshly baked cake from our Amazing chefs they are enjoyed by residents and families with hot tea and coffee.
Love is in the air at Hill House as we get ready to celebrate Valentine’s day. On the 3rd residents enjoyed getting creative making valentine’s cards for loved ones.
Reminiscing is an important part of our daily living and photographs provide a great talking point and encourage us to share stories of our history.
Skittle is a fun game and encourages hand/eye coordination and gross motor skills. On Thursday 6th we really enjoyed a games and the light heart completions that goes along with it.
Fresh flowers are delivered weekly and we really look forwards to arranging the flower displays and take pride when seeing them around the home.
As part of our Movement morning on a Friday we played parachute games. It is lots of fun trying to keep the balls or balloon in play.
Friday’s movement to music is always a lot of fun, we enjoy playing along with the live entertainer Graham.
Tea’s and coffees are always served when friends and families visit, we love them joining in with activities with us. Weekends at Hill house are always busy with lots of loved ones visiting.
We were so pleased to welcome Albert the Pug into Hill House on Saturday 8th, at the request of a resident, we all enjoyed cuddles and seeing his little face.
Sunday 9th saw France take on Italy in the rugby 6 nations. Residents have enjoyed watching the start of the 6 nations rugby world cup, we look forwards to seeing who makes the final.
As part of arts and crafts Monday residents made beautiful handmade decoration ready for Fridays celebrations. Hearts as far as the eye could see as we made beautiful handmade hearts to decorate the home.
Cooking club is a great way to maintain independence and enjoy our love of cooking, baking and making. At the starts of Valentines week, we enjoyed getting messy making and decorating heart shaped cookies.
During a reminiscence conversation on board games, we spoke about the game Kerplunk and how the piece would be too small and fiddley. The amazing activities team worked with us and we build Kerplunk using chicken wire and gardening canes and had lots of fun and laughter playing a game that brought back lots of fun memories playing with our grandchildren on 11th.
On Wednesday 12th Holy communion was held at hill House. Singing, sermon and prayers are important to enable our residents to continue to follow their faith. We look forward to Rev Tara’s visit each month.
The board game reminiscence inspired us to share games we enjoy playing with our families and we introduced new games to each other and helped one another learn how to play them and have loved playing games like RummyKub Triominoes and connect 4.
We are very pleased to have welcomed some volunteers into Hill House on Thursday 13th and we really look forwards to their weekly visit’s.
The Big Hill house Pig Race was the highlight to end a fun filled week, Residents enjoyed placing bets and winning fun pig related prizes. We cannot wait to host the race again and crown another winner.
Friday’s weekly trips allow our residents to get out and about in the local community is so important, a trip to Redfield’s garden centre for a little retail therapy and a cup of coffee and a cake.
Residents were treated to a beautiful 1950’s Valentine’s Lunch, hearts shaped table decoration and a glass of wine was enjoyed by everyone as they tucked into a romantic meal.
Our Valentine’s celebrations continued with a 1950’s Tea Dance with fancy dress and lots of love, Jonti Duo performed a loved-up song set for residents to dance and sing along too.
We enjoy using the parachute as part of the exercises programme, Saturday morning stretch gets us ready for the weekend ahead.
We really enjoyed getting sticky when making treats for the birds in our garden as part of pet week on Monday 17th.
We have enjoyed watching the birds feed on our homemade treats from the windows.
Pet week was a time to celebrate all pets in different shapes and sizes. The week started off well as we welcomed two beautiful Shetland ponies into the home. Being able to stroke and feel the ponies provide great sensory activity for our residents.
Celebrating birthdays is an important part of our activities, freshly baked cakes always put a smile on our resident’s faces.
Half term saw a lot of visiting families coming in, we really enjoyed the children visiting us and we had lots of fun playing games together. On Tuesday 18th we spent time playing board games and playing dominoes.
On Wednesday one of our activity team was very excited to bring in her Dog Hudson a French bulldog, he made himself at home lapping up cuddles and strokes from anyone who was willing to give them.
We welcomed the greyhounds into Hill House as pet week continued. Greyhounds visit us every two weeks and we love to see them; they are so loving and soft.
It is always great fun to see the goats walking around Hill house they came in especially on 20th for pet week, residents love to see them. They joined us for the morning, we enjoyed feeding them carrots and broccoli.
A Birthday isn’t a birthday without a beautiful cake.
As we ended Pet week, we took a trip to the local garden centre to see the pets, residents enjoyed seeing the garden ornament animals too and said they would fit in well with all the animals here at Hill House.
Our Friday entertainment is a great place for residents to get together and let their hair down and catch up with friends.
Our knitting and a natter circle on a Saturday morning has grown week by week, we really enjoy nattering away to the sounds of needles clicking, residents have enjoyed teaching staff new knitting techniques like the pearl stitch.
22nd Saturday morning, we welcomed a classical pianist from the local St Nicholas school who played a spectacular set for residents. One resident conducted along to the music and is looking forwards to hearing him again.
Our lovely chef brought in Bessy bunny to meet the resident’s, she made herself at home, we asked if we could keep her as she was so soft and enjoyed everyone’s company.
Sundays formally known as a day of rest, are becoming the new Sunday fun day.
Our wonderful volunteers were back on Monday 24th and we enjoyed painting daffodils as part of the St David’s day upcoming celebrations.
We enjoyed a good game of dominoes with our volunteers, we have definitely met our match as she stormed away winning game after game.
Cooking club is an important part of our weekly calendar and this week we made welsh cakes ready to be fried by chef to enjoy with our evening drinks. There was debate on how best to cook welsh cake between our welsh resident’s and staff. Granny’s metal plate seems to be the best way.
Resident’s enjoyed flipping pancakes as part of the Shrove Tuesday celebrations while our activities team cooked fresh pancakes for us to enjoy with a topping of our choice.
Our amazing Head chef put the staff to shame as she flipped her pancake a massive 28 times in 30 seconds and was crowned winner of the pancake flipping contest.
On Wednesday 26th we took a trip out to Ellisfield Church to see the beautiful snowdrops in the yard. We stopped off for tea, coffee and cakes and had a lovely time together.
Thursday 27th we enjoyed seated exercises, seated star jumps was a new exercise we introduced and brought about a lot of laughter.
Our weekly trip out took us to Morrisons in fleet, we enjoyed looking round the shop and buy a few bits and pieces before heading up to the café to enjoy a hot drink and a slice of cake.
We celebrated St David’s day a few days early with the fantastic Terry Owen singing welsh songs.
It is so much fun to look back through our scrapbooks and see all the things we get up to.
St David’s day decorations where being made as part of our arts and crafts club. They have been displayed around the home and look very bright and cheerful.
