Activities at Arbour Court Care Home

Every month Arbour Court celebrates different countries and cultures around the world. In September, we celebrated Mexico. 

We enjoyed various activities such as sombrero and maraca decorating. Later on in the day, we played a game of piñata and made margaritas and quesadillas and ended the day relaxing and watching the Disney film Coco, based on the Mexican festival Day of the Dead.   

To honour and recognise the hard work and vital contributions of our housekeeping staff, we thought we would do some housekeeping of our own. 

Residents and activities staff made beds, wiped down surfaces, paired socks and even hooved! Afterwards, we enjoyed a relaxing cup of tea after a hard day's work.  

On 16th August we hosted our annual summer fair where Arbour Court hosted a face-painting station, Tombola, a gift stall and adopted a bear! We also had 7 other stalls from the local community. 

We are proud to announce that we raised £450 at our fair, which will go towards our residents. 

We celebrated national friendship day by giving, reviving and making friendship bracelets.

Residents enjoyed choosing a variety of bead and patterns to make their friendship bracelets and chose who they would like to receive their handmade bracelet. We all enjoyed feeling and expressing love and friendship.  

To honour self-care day, this morning we focused on sensory and relaxation as we held wellbeing sessions. Residents enjoyed hand massages and had their nails painted, as well as sensory lights to relax. 

Later in the afternoon, we used our new boots memory box to reminisce about the past.

During the day, we had the lovely Clare, who is an ambassador for Tropic Skincare, for our visitors and staff to try out. Clare also offered free hand massages to all.

Staff and residents at Barchester’s Arbour Court were treated to a live talk entitled ‘Natural Pigments Inspired by South Asian Miniature Painting’ hosted by Holly Power and Rafin Jannat from the V&A South Kensington. In celebration of National Art in Care Homes Day, residents joined Holly from the V&A Learning team and designer-artist Rafin Jannat for a live make-along. 

They learnt about the stunning work of artists, designers and craftspeople that feature in the South Asia Gallery at the V&A South Kensington. Residents were inspired to create their own works on paper using pigments and paints made from everyday ingredients such as tea and coffee.  

Sourdough September is a dedicated celebration of all things sourdough, highlighting the art, science and joy of baking with an ancient form of leavening. This month-long event encourages participants to embrace the simplicity and complexity of sourdough. To participate in sourdough September, we decided to host a baking club revolving around sourdough. 

We decided to bake banana sourdough bread consisting of banana sourdough and chocolate chips. The residents loved preparing the pudding and taste-testing it.  

We spend time unwinding and slowing down through relaxing our minds, bodies and senses in recognition of National Relaxation Day. Our residents enjoyed making lavender bags and lavender bath salt to sell at our summer fair. 

Many residents expressed how much they love the smell of lavender and how relaxed it makes them feel. Others, enjoyed a nice relaxing time in our garden or sit back and watching a film. We discussed all the different ways our staff and residents like to relax.  

Ludy, our senior carer on the Ground Floor, has been crowned Dementia Care Champion for the North Division. Next stop…the nationals! Over 5,250 incredibly high-standard nominations were received this year. 

Ludy will join winners from across the UK at a special awards event in October to celebrate their outstanding achievements and see if they’ve won a national award. Huge congratulations! 

We celebrated National Ice Cream Day with a homemade Ice Cream Cart that visited residents in their bedrooms or communal areas. 

Our residents have had a great afternoon choosing ingredients to put in their very own ice cream sundaes or cones from vanilla and raspberry pavlova ice-cream, with various toppings such as to 100’s and 1000’s, flakes and wafer and sauces such as chocolate or strawberry sauce.

The finished sundaes were enjoyed with a cup of tea while chatting about their favourite ice creams.

Every month Arbour court hosts animal therapy events. In September, we welcomed Pearl into our home. Pearl is a ragdoll cat who loves to sit on laps and beds. 

Pearl has such a calming temperament. We noticed residents felt a lot more relaxed with Pearl sat on their laps purring.   

We took a stroll into our gardens to take some beautiful photos using our digital camera. Resident enjoyed getting their best photo of the grounds. 

Later on in the day, we looked back on our memories of a home with our life at Arbour Court and looked through our residents' own photo albums. We all had a wonderful day full of memories.      

Every month Arbour Court celebrates different countries and cultures around the world. In August, we celebrated Yorkshire. Staff and residents thought Yorkshire would be quite fitting as it was national Yorkshire day. We learnt Yorkshire lingo, and drank Yorkshire tea with a slice of Parkin cake. 

In the afternoon, we served lunch with Yorkshire pudding and snaked on Wensleydale cheese and crackers. Throughout the day we learnt about Yorkshire culture and what Yorkshire is famous for. We also spoke about family holidays to destinations such as Scarborough and Filey.   

At Arbour Court Care Home we are delighted to announce that we passed a recent Care Quality Commission inspection, maintaining our overall ‘Good’ rating. 

The CQC inspected the home on 2nd, 9th and 22nd April and rated the home as ‘Good’ in all areas of the inspection – safe, effective, caring, responsive, well-led. 

The report stated that people and families spoke highly of how they were treated. One relative commented, “I like how the staff are with us, they create a very friendly atmosphere.” We observed the staff were caring and spoke kindly and respectfully to people. Care plans reflected how people’s privacy and dignity should be promoted and families said this was followed.

We tumbled down the rabbit hole and into Wonderland for our Mad Hatter’s Tea Party!

Residents were treated to afternoon of fun, laughter, and delicious treats – with plenty of accessories, hats, and a table fit for the Queen of hearts. everyone got into the spirit – and let’s just say, we’ve never seen so many grins as wide as the Cheshire Cat’s!

“It’s always tea time” – and we couldn’t agree more!