Residents at Hill House this week have been treated to a week of food and fabulous fun, with a variety of baking and cooking activities and of course they got to enjoy the fruits of their labour. These activities are all on top of the pack activity programme on offer here at Hill House.
Monday morning as part of our regular exercise programme we took on a game of skittles. We love to help out around our home, as part of our activities of daily living.
After lunch we settled into arts and crafts and we painted our stunning clay sunflowers we have paint, we can’t wait to see them displayed around the home. Alliteratively others watched
Tuesday morning two teams took on knock out skittles in the lounge. Hill House was filled with a wide range of activities throughout the morning, we love to play giant snakes and ladders as a group in encourage us to talk with others and make new friends, others played dominoes, completed jigsaw puzzles and engaged in water colour art work painting.
Shrove Tuesday is the last opportunity to use up eggs and fats before embarking on the Lenten fast and pancakes are the perfect way of using up these ingredients. In the UK, pancake races form an important part of the Shrove Tuesday celebrations – an opportunity for large numbers of people, often in fancy dress, to race down streets tossing pancakes. The object of the race is to get to the finishing line first, carrying a frying pan with a cooked pancake in it and flipping the pancake as you run.
Hill House continues to celebrate the tradition every year with its annual pancake making competition, and this year we spread the celebration over two days. Tuesday afternoon our Garden View wing whipped up light fluffy pancakes together and watched the cooking demonstration as they were cooked for us by our fantastic activity team, each of us enjoyed a warm pancake adorned with toppings of our choice from lemon juice, sugar, whipped cream, honey, syrup and even vanilla ice-cream, many of us stuck with tradition and enjoyed ours with lemon and sugar. Staff completed a flipping completion and we judge the winners, the activity brought so much laughter and fun and we really loved working as a group to make the batter.
Wednesday morning, we started our day with balloon games and exercises across the home, when we exercise, our body releases chemicals called endorphins. These endorphins interact with the receptors in your brain that reduce your perception of pain. Endorphins also trigger a positive feeling in the body, what better wat to start the day.
Others spent the morning adding to their scrapbooks, cutting out each photo choosing the pictures we want to add enable us to create personal memories of the activities and events we engage in at Hill House. We cannot wait to show our families everything we have been up to during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wednesday afternoon was day two of our pancake completion. We worked together to weigh out and measure the ingrediencies needed following the recipe set by step. Taking it in turns to mix the batter and create a light fluffy mixture. When we were all happy it was whisked correctly (there was some debate over this) we watched as the pancakes where cooked on a hot plate in front of us, ensure we all had hot pancakes with toppings of our choice.
The smell of pancakes filled the home enticing others into the lounge.
After the excitement of the baking and eating of the pancakes, staff joined us for a pancake flipping completion, pancakes were tossed and flipped all over the place a couple hit the celling lucky they didn’t stick, and others landed on our laps and the floor but we all had a great laugh and even a work out its not as easy as we remember flipping pancakes.
Thursday morning, we listened to classical music and enjoyed a morning or painting and therapeutic colouring. Alliteratively we visited our in house Hair dresser and took part in a Food themed Quiz.
We split our flower arranging club in to two smaller groups after lunch, they each created stunning floral arrangement for the home. We enjoyed games of noughts &crosses, took walks in the spring sunshine and spent time video calling our families and friends.
Puzzles are fun, entertaining, and one of the most challenging hobbies. The benefits of solving puzzles are innumerable, including enhanced memory, better cognitive skills, improved concentration, and much more on Friday morning.
Others engaged in one-to-one activities including scrapbooking, Pod visits with family, listening to music and playing boards games.
Friday afternoon we played games on the interactive activity centre, target games and sensory swipe games are still a few of our favourites
On the garden View wing we loved the pancake making so much we were all very excited to get baking, we made three different flavour cupcakes, chocolate fudge, vanilla and chocolate chip. We each chose these flavours looking through recipes on the iPad before making the batters together. The smell of fresh cupcake mixture tempted more of us to join in the messy fun.
After enjoying the cakes warm out the oven with a cup of tea or coffee, we burnt off the calories dancing and singing along to our favourite songs on the Omi interactive activity centre.
Saturday morning, we took long walks around the gardens to see the daffodils and snow drops.
The afternoon was filled with celebrations as we celebrate a special lady’s birthday, she loved her POD visit with family and everyone singing her happy Birthday. Others engaged in a variety of activities across the home from Dominoes, Movie club and skype calls with families and friends.
Our outstanding activities ladies at Hill House acting as fairy godmothers have been going round the home and asking all the residents what they wish for. Sunday saw, another resident’s wish be granted. A special Sunday Roast Chicken dinner with his wife. Our activities and kitchen team worked really well and nailed it, with stunning food and the POD decorations laid out as a mirror image with the addition of fairy lights for that extra Hill House sparkle. The couple were very elated and expressed their gratitude. A big thank you ladies for organizing this. Watch out for this space for more wishes to be granted.
Sunday afternoon we were delighted with a fruit tasting cart, it looked fresh from the farmers market and didn’t disappoint. Sensory stimulation activities like fruit tasting, activated of one or more of our senses including taste, smell, vision, hearing, and touch. Listening to a playlist of themed music linked with a tasting cart, is designed to provide a higher sensory experience.