Activities at Tixover House Care Home

Our carer, Praveena, kindly thought of this creative idea for our home and delivered it to our residents. Just look how beautiful the finished product is! Well done Praveena, it was greatly received by our residents and has brought much pleasure for those who have observed the vase of flowers in the days following. 

We have had many creatives of late, linked to flowers. Our residents enjoyed the Indian Miniature Painting and in celebration of National Art in Care Homes Day, joined Holly from the V&A Learning team and designer-artist Rafin Jannat in this live make-along. We actively promote our staff team to share their interests and skills with our residents, adding to the variety of our life enrichment for our residents, filling our home with such vibrant colours. 

Burghley House for our residents this morning! One of the residents described it as his favourite trip to date, I don't know whether that was just because someone thought we had brought Tom Jones with us! We took a slow drive taking in the deer, had cappuccinos and croissants, saw the flowers on sale and mooched through the gift shop. 

It was a truly spectacular outing this morning. We were so close to the stags, pulled over in our mini-bus so we could take the scene in our surroundings. One of our residents detailed Burghley House of 40 years previous, which we all found particularly interesting, to know we were having our refreshments in what used to house the horses. We love getting out into the community, everywhere is so welcoming and everyone always stops and chatters with our residents, enhancing our time outside.

We are so fortunate in our home to have such good community links. We reached out to Charles (photographed with our Head of Activities Caroline) and asked if he would kindly bring one of his military vehicles to our home, and he didn’t disappoint. 

He parked it directly across from our home, for residents to view and for resident discussion. We bring such variety to our home, ensuring there is “something for everyone.” Not just something new to look at, but a new face to our home, opening up our walls to the wider community for discovery.

Mindspace, Stamford is a grassroots initiative working to improve wellbeing in our area. ‘Mindspace is a Stamford-based charity with the vision of improving the wellbeing of the people of Stamford by offering groups and activities for the community. The Wellbeing Garden is an important part of the Mindspace vision. 

Contact and active engagement with our natural environment has proven beneficial effects on all of us, and it was with this in mind that the Garden was developed.’ We spent a morning at their Wellness Garden, kindly looked after by Kay. We took a walk round the garden and then gave a charitable donation to enjoy refreshments in the tranquillity and beauty of their gardens. A sketch class was taking place during our visit. We took much pleasure in looking through their wonderful work, what a setting to sit in. We hope to see you again very soon. ‘ 

Katherine Smith at Tixover has been crowned Dementia Care Champion for the North East Division in the Barchester Care Awards 2025 and is through to the national round of judging.

The Barchester Care Awards celebrate the staff who go the extra mile for the benefit of the 13,500 residents living in Barchester’s 267 care homes and private hospitals across the country. Categories range from ‘Registered Nurse of the Year’ and ‘Carer of the Year’ to ‘Dementia Care Champion’ and ‘Activities Coordinator of the Year’. 
 

Our residents enjoyed pet therapy this week within our home. It is always an experience having a lounge full of cats, dogs, guinea pigs and chickens! Our residents enjoyed a morning having cuddles with various pets, watching the animals do tricks and trying to catch the cats and dogs who were busy exploring the home this morning! Thank you to Michelle for accommodating a late-minute booking for our residents. It was so lovely to see you and have you visit our home! 

Here at Tixover, we have a weekly visit from our pet therapy dog, Jessie. Jessie will visit all communal areas of the home and do room visits, in particular of our Nursing Community. Our residents' families happily bring their animals in too and share them with extended family within the home, and we have an upcoming booking for Zoolab and our creepy crawlies which we are looking forward to. Animals of all kinds are always a big hit with lots of resident engagement!  

Our first official pet therapy dog in our home! Dot approached me at our Summer Fair and can bring Jessie in at least twice a week. Many of our residents, visitors and staff will have already met Jessie. She goes across the Nursing Community providing room visits and visits all of our lounges within Memory Lane and Residential. We have all fallen in love with Jessie and really look forward to seeing her! 

Jessie (and Dot) are fabulous additions to our home. The joy and happiness throughout our home can really be felt during their visits, a puppy cuddle can certainly solve a lot of things! We are always welcoming new pets to our home, so please reach out to our Activities ladies if you are able to contribute to our home’s life enrichment in this way!

We had a fabulous morning, being welcomed, having a tea party together, viewing the children's artwork, crocheting and helping plant their new herb planters. The children and adults were getting ready for their lunchtime BBQ. There was a real buzz. We were seated in the garden, with a game of swing ball in the background and the BBQ starting to warm up. 

We are so happy to have such a great relationship, having lots of plans for the future. The children are coming to our Summer Fair to do painting too. We received a card and biscuits. The card said, 'Dear Tixover House, thank you so much for visiting and spending time with some of us. We love getting to know you.'   

We were so lucky to pass a morning at the Vineyard, beneath the umbrellas, with refreshments. Located on top of a narrow ridge between the rivers Welland and Chater, 70m above sea level and facing south, we’ve got a prime part of Rutland. Hard to think 160 million years ago this would have been England’s south coast! 

Single site vineyard planted in 2021.’ It was a beautiful sunny, warm day, and we sang 'You Are My Sunshine.' We were joined by our wonderful carers Laura and Kathy, and their families, which made it such a beautiful intergenerational activity for our residents, as well as being joined by Pat, our regular singer in the home, who has become a real friend to our home. 

The much awaited evening of the Rutland Morris performing to our home. This has been in the diary for a year (it isn’t even guaranteed to get a yearly performance, because they are just that busy covering events across the county, sharing their talents with so many). A few residents chose to brave the elements (yes, in June, there were elements!) and be seated outside for the performance, but for most, they were seated in the Garden Lounge, with large windows overlooking the evening entertainment. 

The Rutland Morris made introductions and shared information to all residents throughout the evening, the attires filled the home with colour and jangles and with the dancers we didn’t know which way to look, there was so much to watch. For those, where the event wasn’t accessible, or they were too tired from the day’s events, the care-team put on Morris Dancing on the screens across the home. Rutland Morris filled our Main Lounge following, taking the time to join our home for refreshments and to speak with our residents and staff. Now, I just need a staff member to join the folk dance group, as a way in to get regular bookings, any takers?!

Our Resident Ambassador delivered an Oktoberfest best reads in the morning as part of our monthly Book Club. Our residents then had time for independent activities, with German-themed literature, activity packs and puzzles distributed across the home. Our residents then sampled German beers and a stein of cold beer was left in the refrigerator to accompany the evening meal. Alongside the beer, was an Oktoberfest quiz and fact sheet. 

To close the themed day, we watched themed documentaries on YouTube and read literature on the subject. See below for the 3-course themed dining session produced by our chef's team: Starters – Traditional German Cream of Potato and Dill Cream Soup served with garlic croutons or Egg, new potato and paprika salad with Sauerkraut, Main course - Sauerbraten or Pork Schnitzel, Dessert - Apple Strudel and Fruits of the Forest Mousse. Thank you to all the staff who helped to make this day a success! We cannot wait for our next themed day. There has been so much excitement and buzz throughout our home!

We veered away from our typical music session and did a festival themed for the recent Radio 2 In The Park. Singing Bryan Adams, Def Leppard, Olly Murs, Ronan Keating and Belinda Carlisle, to name but a few! We were donned with Radio 2 stash, bucket hats, props a plenty and percussion. 

Huge thank you to Kathy, who simply adores this festival, incorporating it into her music festival calendar! We closed the singing and dancing after an hour, agreeing we would all sleep well and then continued to take in the festival vibes, by watching YouTube videos of the best In The Park moments over the years! What an afternoon!! Our oldest resident of the room, at 104 years of age, told me off to take her BBC Radio 2 neckerchief from her at the end of the session (returning to Kathy), not wanting to bring the festival to a close. Definitely a day we will have to redo again!

We are fortunate in our home to have a good relationship with the High Sheriff of Rutland, whereby we invite him to our activities and events. On this occasion, we asked the High Sheriff to come to the home and do a long talk to our residents, open it up to questions and answers following a show and tell as such, whereby he passed his sword around the room of residents. 

He spent a lot of time at our home and was seated listening to our residents' life histories. It was a fabulous activity meeting the intellectual needs of our residents. We look forward to welcoming Richard Chesterfield to our home again soon.

We had a fabulous outing, taking in the views at Lyndon Nature Reserve. Rutland Water Nature Reserve is an internationally recognised Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), Special Protection Area (SPA) and a Ramsar Wetland of International Importance. It is one of the best places to enjoy birds and wildlife in the UK. Search for rare spring migrants, admire fishing ospreys in the summer, enjoy the autumn wader passage and marvel at huge flocks of winter wildfowl.

We enjoyed simply sitting and watching the birds and squirrels, whilst we had hot and cold drinks, cakes and ice creams. We used the telescope, saw the Osprey on screen, read through pamphlets and took a look through the gift shop. On our way home, we took another scenic route through Lyndon, Pilton and South Luffenham, pausing to take in the views, seeing donkeys and Shetland ponies too. Where to next week?

We came together on Sunday to have a day to celebrate our diversity "Beauty begins the moment you decide to be yourself" and inclusivity "Pride is for everyone." The home has been decorated in hearts (I really don't want to take these down!) All of our staff came together in their colours (don't they look fabulous!) and we used edible pens to decorate our biscuits, which everyone, residents and staff were able to enjoy. Literature was printed, including pride activity books, pride picture quizzes and pride true or false quizzes. 

Lots of 1-1s were logged by our carer-team, who took the time to sit down with residents alongside the literature and have meaningful interactions and discussions surrounding ‘Pride;’ to ensure deeper context is provided besides colour flooding our home. Residents praised the staff, with lots of compliments, in seeing what their staff team look like in regular clothes as opposed to their tunics. A huge well done to the staff-team at Tixover for celebrating diversity not just for the month of pride month, but by being exemplary of celebrating differences on every date of the diary.