After the beautiful sunshine we have been loving, many of us have been sharing stories of holidays and summer memories, this week we took a trip to Spain, learning the culture and traditions of a country many of us have visited before.
The week was packed with new exciting activities, a new destination for our armchair travel, whisky tasting and the old fashioned sweet trolly.
Monday mornings art and crafts club got sticky very quickly as we crafted papier Mache pinata’s for the traditional Spanish game later in the week.
We enjoyed using water colours as part of our therapeutic colouring activity, we find that therapeutic colouring can be focusing, relaxing, calming, problem solving, and organizational.
Baking and cooking were part of our daily routines when living at home, we look forwards to our weekly cooking club as it triggers memories, stimulates our senses, improves our appetite and encourages us to get creative.
Staying active and fit on a Monday afternoon with balloon bounce is great fun.
Tuesday our activities team stepped up again and transferred their skills to hairdressing, it makes us feel special.
Tuesday morning it was still nice and sunny, we took the parachute game outside to the garden view patio.
Dominos is a great game of strategy and critical thinking. We played in small groups on Tuesday morning while others took part in a quiz.
The afternoon stayed sunny and warm we thought we would make the most of the sunshine as the papers had said it was going to cloud over and get cooler in the coming days, we took our papers, magazines to the garden and music played while we reminisced about gardening.
Our papier mache pinatas had dried hard and it was time to decorate them, we cut out strips of tissue paper and attached it to the pinata in a bright and colour pattern.
Our amazing activity team have set up a Men’s Club here at Hill House, by talking with the gentlemen about their hobbies and interest the team have gone away and carefully selected a special set of activities that we will enjoy together, as well as ensuring we take part in activities involving all residents and remain integrated within the home as a whole. Men’s Club runs once weekly and we started off in style on Tuesday afternoon by tasting fine whiskies and learning about their history, the conversation wasn’t the only thing flowing as we got to know each other more.
‘It was so lovely to see new friendships growing as they sat and chatted for hours’- Activities team.
Table games are always a favourite past time. These sensory puzzles are great for our coordination. And Wednesday morning flew by and before we knew, it was lunch time.
Skittle’s is a fun game and encourages hand/eye coordination and gross motor skills. We really enjoyed playing and the light heart completions that goes along with it.
We still love receive all your lovely cards and letters and we know the post men and women are working really hard to ensure we get all our mail, and some of them are turning up later than intended but we don’t mind at all they always put a smile on our faces.
Afternoon Exercises, it doesn’t have to be boring we love to exercise and have fun at the same time, Balloon bounce and ball games always get everyone laughing and joking about.
This damp Wednesday afternoon we hopped on board Hill House Airline flight to the sunny Spanish mainland’s where we took a virtual trip to Barcelona as we watched a documentary before being treated to Spanish drinks and wine as part of our inflight drinks service. We had so much fun in Barcelona we couldn’t wait to see what was next and Spain didn’t disappoint we watched a fabulous Spanish dance show, got competitive during the Spanish fact quiz before finishing off our holiday watching two young Spanish children dancing the bamboo which brought us great joy and happiness.
Armchair travel provides an opportunity for us to share our past travel experiences and provides a deeper understanding and enjoyment of another country or region’s history, culture and geography. We have loved our virtual trips around the world so far and being in lockdown has not stopped us traveling and seeing the beautiful world we live in.
Thursday morning, we had an impromptu knit and a knitter club. The conversation was flowing as we reminisced about the war days, sparked by the news that the government could extend the lock down this evening. We spoke about the hardships of the war but how we could still get out and about to see our loved ones and as the war went on, we as children became more adventures and took more risks (going out without our gas masks because they were heavy to carry around).
The OMI interactive activity unit is used regularly within the home. With so many games, activities and options, everyone can find something they enjoy doing.
Table cog’s is a great stimulating activities it involves strategy and problem solving and working solo or as a group you can create many formation and patterns.
Thursday afternoon Flower arranging brought bright colours and floral smells into the lounge and brightened up the room as we arranged them into floral displays. Afterwards we took part in the Spanish quiz and were very pleased we could answer a lot of the questions.
Thursday afternoon we dusted off the scrabble boards. The fun things about playing Scrabble is learning new words, and being with friends, we help each other out with words and don’t take the game too serious.
We love to receive post from family and friends, we sat and read cards and letter over our Friday morning cups of tea and a slice of cake.
We really enjoyed playing scrabble on Thursday that our marvellous activities team adapted our giant crossword board into a scrabble board. Working in pairs we spent Friday morning playing a giant game of scrabble with our friends before enjoying a lovely fish and chip lunch.
Friday afternoon we enjoyed spending some one to one time with staff we enjoyed manicures, garden walks and reading together.
The big pinata smash that we had been looking forwards too after working hard on our pinata throughout the week, we each took it in turns to smash the pinata with a noodle as it hung in air. We laughed so loud as it swung around and refused to break easily. When the piñata finally broke a flood of sweets and chocolate fell across the floor. We enjoyed these with our teas and coffees afterwards. It was great to get everyone involved weather it was the making, decorating or the smashing it really was a whole home project.
Hill House has its very own ‘traditional sweet’ shop trolley! Filled with classic sweets such as foam bananas, Lemon Sherbets and Dolly Mixtures. We’re always looking for new things to bring smiles to our residents’ faces and add an extra touch of homeliness to Hill House.
The sweets are free to everyone and the old-school pink and white striped paper bags allow residents to choose their sweets to take back with them in their room later if they wish or enjoy in an orange sweet tub their and then.
There are so many retro sweet favourites to try and reminisce over! Therefore, different sweets will be added all the time to give residents lots of mouth-watering choice.
Balloon Bounce was the activity the residents chose for Saturday mornings exercise. Followed by a bit more work on our memory scrapbooks.
The afternoon was spent playing a target practice game and enjoying some competition.
The OMI interactive display is in high demand daily throughout the home. There are many different activities we enjoyed swiping the feathers away and revelling the hidden picture on Sunday morning. The afternoon we sat back and relaxed during our weekly movie.
