Activities at Fountains Care Home

Fountains residents enjoyed getting some fresh air, with a walk down to our local Garden Centre this morning for some Christmas Shopping. 

Our residents love the opportunity to visit the Garden Centre. This trip was made even more special as we got to take a look at all of the beautiful Christmas decorations.

We all left feeling very festive and excited for the big day. The countdown is now on! only 12 days to go. 

We look forward to continuing with our exciting outings in the new year.

Fountains residents had great fun putting together their own Gingerbread House this morning. In celebration of International Gingerbread House Day. 

Using icing sugar and a variety of sweets we carefully assembled our house. 

The delicious smell of gingerbread filled the room and had us all excited to try some. 

We were all delighted with the finished result and it tasted delicious too. 

Fountains residents were treated to a ‘Virtual Christmas Bauble Demonstration with Goldfinch Studios’ this week.

Founded by Jennifer Owen, Goldfinch is a floral design studio.

Based in Somerset they pride themselves on delivering ‘out of the ordinary flowers’ to people who are craving something a bit different.

Jenifer hosted the workshop and guided us through the creative process. The baubles were filled with beautiful dried flowers and grasses to create simple yet stunning decorations. 

Our residents enjoyed creating their own designs during the session, we sang along to our favourite Christmas songs and shared happy memories of the festive season too.

The completed baubles are now proudly hanging from our Christmas trees for us all to enjoy. 

Thank you to Jennifer for such a fantastically festive workshop. It was great fun for us all here at Fountains. 

We had a very special event at Fountains last night… A little later than planned but we were finally able to switch our Christmas lights on!

We celebrated with our families and community and what a wonderful night it was.

We had a visit from Santa thanks to Shirley Lions, and a beautiful choral performance from St Patrick’s Church Choir and a visit from Santa’s helper thanks to Pampered Ponies. It was a night full of festive fun. 

Our residents were delighted to welcome the Mayor of Solihull - Ken Meeson as our guest of honour to turn our lights on and officially begin our festive celebrations as well as Local Councillor Karen Grinsell.

We had some amazing stalls too from Bramble Bees Florist selling homemade festive wreaths, ‘Kay Meadows - Kay’s Little Gift Shop’ selling the most beautiful decorations and photo frames. 

We also had Age UK Solihull selling their own Christmas cards and Handmade with Love’ selling their most amazing handcrafted Christmas gifts. There was a very popular raffle too with wonderful prizes donated by family, staff and Tesco, Stratford Road Gillian Smith

There Were Festive Games Such As ‘Guess The Weight Of The Cake’, ‘How Many Sweets In The Jar?’ and a festive wine bottle game too.

Of course no celebration would be complete without our fantastic Kitchen Team getting involved. They made homemade Winter-Spiced Soup, Turkey & Cranberry rolls - which were just delicious.

Hot Chocolate bombs with Marshmallows, Mulled Wine, Gingerbread Men, Rocky-Roads and Festive Cupcakes too!

It was an evening full of fun and festive cheer. So a very big ‘Thank you’ goes out to our families, volunteers, friends, and wonderful community for braving the bitterly cold weather and celebrating Christmas with us.

Fountains residents enjoyed a spectacular virtual tour of ‘Blenheim Palace’s Christmas Decorations and Outdoor Lights Trail’ this afternoon. 

The event was organised by our Life Enrichment Team at Barchester. We also had Antonia Keaney - Social Historian at the Palace guide us through the tour. 

We began with exploring the Nutcracker inspired Palace rooms. Each room was so exquisitely decorated and filled with hidden surprises for our residents to spot. 

We then ventured outside and explored the ‘after-dark illuminated trail’. The stunning light display and the sounds of festive songs filled the room with the joy of Christmas. 

Thank you to Antonia and our Life Enrichment team for a wonderfully festive afternoon. 

Residents and staff at Fountains enjoyed taking part in a Christmas Craft Workshop. We made our very own Festive Tote-bags.

It was a wonderful and relaxing afternoon listening to festive music as we created our handmade bags. 

Our residents enjoyed sharing stories about their favourite festive memories and discussing what they are most looking forward to this year.

I think you will all agree that the finished bags look fantastic!

We are looking forward to filling them with homemade gifts for our friends and family.