Activities at Kingfisher Lodge Care Home

Once again, we kick started the second leg of the Saltford Santa trail this year when we welcomed Santa and his sleigh to our not so little gathering here at Kingfisher Lodge care centre.
We waited with mince pies, Christmas drinks and some very dubious carol singing in our reception, and then with music and light the main man and his sleigh appeared. Local children all raced outside to see him, some with gifts of drawings they made for him earlier in the day.
Santa then came inside to say “Ho Ho Ho” to all our residents, he even had time for a photo opportunity outside by his sleigh before leaving!
General manager Claudia said “The atmosphere was so festive we all felt the magic of Christmas. We would like to thank Saltford Community Association for choosing our home to be the starting point to Santas journey and we were more than happy to donate to their chosen charity Children's Hospice Southwest”.

We had many things going on for Remembrance Day this year. Including trips to the local remembrance garden, making and displaying our own poppy memorial in our beautiful garden, a special church service delivered by churches together and an Armistice Day lunch and concert with beautiful singer Miranda. One highlight of which was watching Miranda and the residents all sing Jerusalem with so much passion it drew tears.

We shall remember them.     

We hosted our annual Macmillan Cancer Support coffee morning and had a wonderful morning full of conversations, great company and delicious cakes. We raised over £190 for the cause from donations and raffle ticket sales. 

Our residents thoroughly enjoyed themselves and the company of family, friends and the community.
One of our residents, Diane, won the raffle prize, which was a big hamper full of goodies including chocolate and prosecco, which she enjoyed a few days later with a couple of her close friends here at Kingfisher Lodge.  

The second summer holidays children’s club and there was Mutiny aboard the King of Fishers pirate ship, as lots of little (and big) pirates invaded our shores!

Everyone collected a hat, eye patch, compass, telescope and a map and went hunting for treasures! The residents and children all sang sea shanty’s, went hunting for jewels in the sand and had to collect letters from around the garden to solve the riddles! We ended the afternoon by making swords and treasure chests together and then having a pirate tale being read aloud by the little pirates to the whole room. We all had such a fun time.

We decided to make some wonderful lavender and rosemary bags to make our rooms smell like a garden. 

We thought we would upcycle some materials we had donated to us for crafts and with some ribbon and glue we were all set. We think they turned out really well. We had staff, residents and visitors all commenting on how they could smell the lavender and rosemary in the corridors all around the home.

Arts and crafts are so important to our residents, they relate to people’s past hobbies, encourage creativity and independence, and also refine hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills. 

We went on a lovely little outing to Otter Garden Centre with a couple of our residents.
The Christmas displays were beautiful and the singing yeti’s made us all chuckle. it really got us in the mood to start Christmas shopping and with all the lovely ideas there we came home with a few presents for the great grandchildren!
Of course, we had to stop in the cafe and have coffee and cake, the traditional fruit cake and cherry bakewell really hit the spot and gave us the energy to continue shopping
When we got back Brenda one of our residents said what a lovely idea it was to go and that she was now feeling “very festive”.

We enjoyed a magical evening filled with sparkling prosecco and firework sparklers as we celebrated Bonfire night in our garden here at Kingfisher Lodge as well as another night of sparklers to finish our Diwali celebrations earlier in the week.

Our hospitality team served delicious hotdogs on Bonfire night for residents and visitors, and we had music filling the air creating a wonderful atmosphere. 

“It’s so lovely to be out in the garden having a party in the dark,” said Joan, one of our residents.     

Some of our residents went to Somerdale Community Shed to plant some trees. We laid out our conkers and hawthorn seeds to chill for a few months, then we planted walnuts, acorns and crab apples in the hope that we may just be able to have a tree or two to replant in our own garden by next year. 

With the sun beaming down on us, we had a very therapeutic time planting and getting our hands dirty in the soil.

Community Gardening club happens monthly during the spring and summers, and we also visit a few times throughout autumn and winter. Being part of the local community in this way helps our residents feel a sense of belonging in their surroundings. 

We had a wonderful day at our annual Dog show celebrating everything K9. Our residents love animal visits and look forward to seeing PAT dog, Millie, and her owner every week, so to have so many dogs running around the garden was a real treat. We raised an impressive £246 in just 2 hours for the children’s hospice charity. Representatives that came along from the charity were delighted.

We had three judges decide the winners and each dog won prizes for each class and the best in show won a trophy to take home. The residents were so thrilled they really enjoyed the whole show. 

“We have always had dogs in our home, from being a small girl to being a homeowner myself. It's not a home without a dog,” said Joan, one of our residents.   

Whenever the sun's out, we like to take advantage of it, so we took our residents and the minibus up to chew valley lakes for some relaxation and bird watching. 

With binoculars at the ready, we saw herons, swans, Canadian geese and ducks a plenty. We fed the geese and ducks and also ourselves with a lovely cuppa and piece of cake at the local café, The Salt and Malt. The cakes were bigger than the ducks!

As Sheila, one of our residents, said, “what a lovely way to spend the morning.”   

Our residents had a masterclass Christmas baking session with our Head Chef Ian.
Residents gathered together rolled out pastry cases and filled them with festive mincemeat and baked them for a delicious afternoon treat.
Chef Ian said “this is the best part of my job, I get to come out of the kitchen and really interact with our residents, we had a lot of fun and made some really good mince pies which we ate after with a nice cuppa”
The residents enjoyed making them, and it’s never to early in December for a mince pie!
 

What a spooktacular event we had celebrating Halloween with the community and local children. We carved pumpkins, made Halloween decorations and had a fancy-dress competition.

Our fancy-dress winner was a wonderful young vampire, but all the children looked amazing, and a lot of our residents became witches for the day too.

We were all rewarded by fiendishly spooky cakes, chocolate and marshmallow drinks and, of course, lots of sweeties. 

We all set off on a trip to Noah’s ark zoo farm for the day. Our residents had a great time seeing all sorts of animals, including lions, elephants and a camel who appeared to have a hump!! 

We had lunch in the restaurant and lots of cake and tea and luckily the weather was on our side and a fun day was had by all.

Joyce, one of our residents, was talking about the trip for days after to her family and couldn’t get over seeing the elephants up so close.   

What a rootin’, tootin’ time we had at our Wild West-themed summer party. Staff and residents dressed up in cowboy hats and accessories.

We had live entertainment from Cowboy Nick singing songs from the old country, games around the home, including a very special competition of names that wanted staff members where members of staff distorted pictures of themselves and residents, families and friends had to guess who the fugitives were. Ending with everyone enjoying a cowboy BBQ served by head chef Karen.

Our Wanted poster Photo Booth was also a hit with residents and families.  

We have been doing lots of exercise activities from sports in the garden, to a live exercise class that was broadcast to all Barchester homes, movement to music, walking laps in the garden and activities that encourage arm movements using the Digital table.

Physical activity is part of our weekly regime here at Kingfisher Lodge. We encourage physical activity in many forms. We understand the individual needs of each resident and what people are able to achieve may vary. Most of all it’s about having fun while keeping our bodies as mobile as possible.