This week residents at Hill celebrated two special calendar events on top of an always busy activity programme. With Valentine’s day and Chinese New Year falling in the same week, residents loved getting ready for both celebrations side by side, comparing the similarity that both share as well as their differences. The week was filled with food, themed carts and lots of games and crafts there was something for everyone.
Monday morning across Hill House we engaged in therapeutic arts and water colour paintings. Creating artwork helps benefit our coordination through small, purposeful movements, leading to less pain. For example, art allows us to focus less on our aches and pains. Instead, it allows us to concentrate on the creative process at hand.
The afternoon was spent playign floor darts this game brings us together and the room is always filled with laughter as we play in teams.
Others opted for a quieter afternoon on word games and jigsaw puzzles while watching the snow fall outside.
Tuesday morning, we get stuck into a variety of table top games, picture pair, shape puzzles, and snap. Poppy came back to visit us here at Hill house visiting a resident who in the past has trained and handled dogs, we also met the newest member to activities coordinator Julies family as she introduced us to her new Puppy Nova.
After lunch we got stuck into arts and crafts club creating heart love bugs for valentine’s day.
Games of snakes and ladders and dominoes were played in the lounges. Board games can enhance memory formation and help exercise our cognitive skills. A lot of games also tend to be low stress and can be calming, helping lower our blood pressure. In many instances, games require some coordination and hand dexterity, which can be important for us as we age.
Wednesday morning, we enjoyed chatting about Valentine’s day and how for years many of us never celebrated or had even heard of Valentine’s Day, many of us never embraced the new tradition of sending cards and gifts to our loved ones. The conversation soon turned to how we had met our partners, at a dance, set up by friends, on the beach, there is something so magical about a LOVE story and it was amazing to be able to share our stories with each other. After our mrning chat we settled down and enjoyed arrange of games and sensory activities.
Richard Cadbury, son of Cadbury founder John Cadbury, created ‘fancy’ boxes of chocolates to increase sales. He used drawings of his family and Alpine scenes to decorate them. In 1861, he created the first heart-shaped box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. To honour this tradition our extraordinary activities team created a chocolate tasting cart, bursting with chocolate: buttons, cakes, biscuits and of course a selection of hot and cold chocolate drinks for us to indulge a little. Love songs played as they went around the home spreading love and laughter to everyone.
Thursday morning our floristry club met and created this week’s bouquets to be displayed around the home, we love the smell of the fresh cut flowers and it fills the rooms.
We enjoyed playing dominoes with friends in our garden view lounge, others watched a Romanic movie.
Thursday afternoon to get us into the Chinese New Year spirit we challenged ourself with word puzzles and games linked the upcoming new year celebrations, others coloured in decorations to be hung around the home.
We still love a good game of dominoes.
Friday was filled with activities, we crafted Valentines cards, completed word games and spent time walking around the home and gardens.
Saturday morning beautiful Valentines bouquets arrived from our loved ones we spent time organising and arranging them in vases to display them in our rooms. We had a quiet morning of hand massages and manicures the perfect start to the weekend, we read the daily papers and magazines.
We celebrated Chinese New Year with a fantastic food tasting cart decorated with the Chinese dragon, we were served a selection of Chinese foods from, prawn toast, noodles and sweet and sour chicken to try on Chinese plates. It was so nice to try foods we haven’t had before or old favourites from our local takeaway we had forgotten about.
This Valentine’s Day at Hill house was bursting with love our amazing activities team decorated the dining areas and laid special place settings for each of us. We were welcomed into the dining room were soft love songs played and we enjoyed a lovely 2 course lunch made by our talented chef, we were served a selection of drinks from wine, sherry or soft drinks throughout our meal. After we finished with teas and coffees served after in fine bone china tea sets and a little chocolate mint.
After lunch our very own Cupids visited us and delivered everyone a rose while singing love songs. The home was filled with love and laughter, we had a wonderful afternoon singing. Being given a rose made us feel extra special and we have made such a magical memory.
