Life at Adlington Manor Care Home

We made the most of the beautiful weather that we’ve had recently and have been spending as much time as possible outside in our beautiful gardens. Not only did we enjoy some nice cocktails and ice lollies to cool down, but we also had a water fight! Armed with water pistols and water balloons, the residents took great delight at throwing them and us and each other. You would be surprised what good aim they have…! We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and are just waiting for the good weather to come back so that we can do it again.

To celebrate The Queen’s birthday, Barchester organised an inter-home competition to design and decorate a cake fit for Her Majesty’s birthday. We started off by thinking about what we wanted our cake to look like. We decided to do a tiered cake (the bigger, the better) and would decorate each tier with something that represented The Queen or Britain in general. We then got to work baking the vanilla sponges and whilst they were in the over we started on our butter cream fondant decorations. We had a great time rolling out the fondant and using cutters to cut out the different shapes. We were really happy with the final result, and the only thing better than winning a prize for it, was getting to eat it in the afternoon with a nice cup of tea!

Although we are unable to go on any day trips at the moment, for obvious reasons, we didn’t let that stop us this week. The beautiful forecast was the perfect excuse for a trip to the beach, so we brought the beach to the residents here in our own gardens at Adlington. After slathering on our factor 50, we spent all afternoon outside in the shade of the beautiful pine trees. We started the day off with some fun and games, including bubble making, flip-flop tossing and playing with beach balls.

We only stopped for our delicious picnic lunch, which was freshly prepared by the kitchen. We finished off lunch at the beach in the best way, with Banana Splits all round! In the afternoon, we cooled off by putting our feet in giant paddling pools that had been filled up with nice cool water. We had such a great time that we decided to do it all again the following day!

To celebrate Her Majesty’s 94th birthday back in April, the residents decided that they would like to send The Queen a birthday card. Everybody signed it and filled it with their best wishes for the special day.

A few weeks later, we were very excited to receive a letter with the royal crest on it. Inside, was a reply from Windsor Castle thanking us for our card and assuring us that The Queen had thoroughly enjoyed her birthday.

The residents felt honoured to have got such a special letter, and many of them have decided to have a copy framed so that they can hang it in their bedrooms.

To celebrate the bank holiday in May, the residents made bunting to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of VE day. Afterwards we used it to decorate their bedrooms and get us talking about what we remember about the end of the war.

We also made sure to listen to typical songs of the time to help bring back the memories. Although our big VE Day celebration has been postponed, we are looking forward to celebrating it properly with friends and family when we can.

Last week, to mark Bank Holiday Monday, we all got out into the garden to enjoy the bank holiday weather. Our chef, Alfie, set up the BBQ and staff and residents enjoyed a BBQ lunch together. Nothing could be better than a nice, big ice cream for dessert, not to mention a couple of glasses of Pimms to round off the evening.

We celebrated St Patrick’s Day in style this month. All the staff members got dressed up in their best green outfits and helped the residents get stuck into the celebrations.

We made some Shamrock paper decorations to stick around the home and bring us all some luck. We also spent the morning baking a chocolate and Baileys cakes with a Baileys buttercream.

For lunch, the residents enjoyed a traditional Irish stew with potatoes and cabbage. When the tea trolley went around in the afternoon, in addition to our usual choices we also had Irish coffee, Guinness or a little glass of Baileys on offer. We certainly enjoyed our little afternoon tipple!