A week of colour and culture at Hill House as residents have absorbed themselves in the traditions of the Hindu festival. Residents took part in the Colour Dance a traditional pastime of the festival, a blessing offered by staff before filling the room with colour, tossing coloured powder into the air and dancing to the Holi music. We also explored marble painting in our art and crafts afternoon. The highlight for many residents and staff was the snow that filled the gardens around Hill House very unexpectedly.
Monday morning, our art and crafts club gathered in the day lounge to create stunning marble pictures.
These pictures were cut into bunting for our Holi festival decorations.
Our giant white board game of Boggle brought us all together and challenged our minds to find as many words as we could from the letters on the grid.
An amazing afternoon as we continued our celebrations of the Hindu festival of Holi with a creative crafting activity. Tie dying is a bright and colourful past time, we used elastic bands to tie our fabric squares before colouring them with bright coloured dyes to create that iconic dye tie look.
A fabulous morning playing Holi bingo in the day lounge, we really do enjoy our themed games of bingo and it also provides great benefits for the brain. Playing bingo can improve your brain’s processing speeds, alertness, and memory capabilities, according to a study. Bingo requires players to be skilful listeners and to have the ability to look for numbers quickly, many times across multiple cards.
Alongside bingo and in a quiet area of the lounge our Omi interactive table and sensory activities offered the opportunity for one-to-one engagement. The calming sounds from wildlife and the images of wildflowers were projected in front of us as we enjoyed hand massages using floral scents of honey, lavender or rose.
Using our iPad we explored sensory engagement, these digital activities help stimulate the brain, creating neutral pathways and improving sensory processing systems.
Others engaged in pet therapy when we welcomed 3 dogs in as visitors and they soon became friends of the home making the most of all the fuss on offer.
Our garden view lounge played a variety of board games including Bananagram a fun word game that sees you take on yourself to create the most words linking them.
That afternoon, our dementia choir gathered at Hill House, we welcomed back our friends from across the other 3 homes who came together to sing songs they know, and to learn new songs. We are preparing for our Kings Coronation Concert where we will sing for our fellow residents and their guests.
Regular choir singing is associated with better verbal flexibility. Long-standing choir activity is linked to better social engagement and more recently any choir activity is linked to better general health.
A great sensory and memory experience took place in our garden view lounges, with a game of “What’s in the bag?”
We put our hand inside a bag to feel an object inside, then tried our best to describe how the object felt using one word that had not been previously used.
Wednesday or as we named it Winter Wednesday we saw up to 3 inches of snow fall in the grounds of Hill House, there was snow as far as the eye could see.
The activities team came in early to build a snow couple outside the window for everyone to enjoy all day long, bringing back so many fond memories for us all. This led to an early morning target practice for residents who were amused by their hard work and threw snowballs at them.
Our activities team brought some snow indoors for a sensory activity, we built snowmen on trays indoors, but a few cheeky residents had a better idea and initiated an incredible indoor snow fight, the home was filled with laughter and joy as snow flew through the air.
Others couldn’t wait to go out and explore the snow, greeting our snowmen and naming them.
Our garden view lounges, took part in their own snow games, throwing snowballs in their court yard garden and assisting with the building of their own snowman.
That afternoon, we had an exciting opportunity to immerse ourselves in our DIY Group. Spending time working on independent projects, creating a wooden bird feeder, working on pipes and building a DIY mega board.
Everyone loved fixing and making things using a wide variety of tools and DIY equipment.
Others decorated Holi cards. The tradition of sending Holi festival of colour cards is a respectful gesture. Greeting cards will convey your good wishes, whether you are near or far from your loved ones.
Our garden view lounge spent their Wednesday afternoon creating stunning tie dye napkins.
The bright colours used are ideal for our Holi celebrations across the home this week.
Thursday morning, we gathered to get ready for our monthly residents meeting, beforehand we took part in one-to-one activities including Rangoli sand art, this is an art form that originates from the Indian subcontinent, in which patterns are created on the floor or a tabletop using materials such as powdered lime stone, red ochre, dry rice flour, coloured sand, quartz powder, flower petals, and coloured rocks.
Our resident’s meeting was hosted by General Manager Laura, she welcomed new staff and residents, listened to questions and comments from residents about their community.
That afternoon, we started the afternoon with a game of floor bowls, followed by our weekly flower arranging club.
Our incredible activities team at Hill House are always striving to create new and exciting activities for us. Tonight, they teamed up with the kitchen to host the first ‘Chef’s Table’.
Linked with this week’s theme of Holi, a group of us sat at the chef’s table helping to prep and cook our dinner before watching Chef Steve bring all the elements together and plate up a sensational two course curry dinner.
A chef’s table is a private dining experience that allows the chef to show off their culinary skills to diners in a more intimate environment.
Friday morning, there was a fun buzz throughout the day lounge as we welcomed many families and friends who were visiting.
We also had small group activities set up across the lounge, three ladies sat together completing a large jigsaw puzzle.
We played card games such as snap in a one-to-one challenge and a group of us played uno a fun colourful card game.
Our garden view lounge took part in fun exercise games such as balloon bounce, this game gets us up on our feet moving about or moving legs and arms in our chairs as we reach to knock the balloon high up in the air.
Along with our family and staff we joined together in the afternoon to celebrate the Hindu Festival of Holi.
We hosted an armchair travel like no other. Everyone boarded their armchairs before heading off to take part in the Holi festival dance, on route they enjoyed beverages from our hostess trolley, took on a themed quiz before landing safely. On arrival they were greeted with brightly coloured powders and traditional music.
We immersed ourselves in the Hindu culture and received a blessing from our Nepalese staff, before enjoying the colour dance, where brightly coloured powder was thrown into the air covering our crisp white T-shirts.
The home was full of excitement and joyfulness, smiles beamed from ear to ear.
Saturday morning, our rangoli sand art took place in our garden view lounge we created shapes and designs using the sands.
That afternoon we welcomed in the wonderfully talented Acapella Choir to sing for us.
Sunday our weekly church services were streamed across the home. Others engaged in “painting what you see, colour by number” pictures.
