Activities at Lochduhar Care Home

Residents at Lochduhar have been hard at work creating cards to send to their loved ones as a surprise throughout lockdown. They have also been making use of skype and facetime so that they can video call their relatives – although some weren’t too sure about the new technology!

Resident, Ruth has been busy keeping in touch with her family and regularly uses skype to catch up with her husband which she really enjoys. Ruth is always full of smiles when she sees David on the screen. Ruth says “it is a great way to see David and speak to him in a way of keeping in touch”.  

Residents of Lochduhar have been busy growing their own fruit and vegetables as part of the homes gardening club and life enrichment programme.  Resident, David has been supporting with harvesting of their bumper crop of lettuces whilst enjoying the warm weather. 

For some residents at Lochduhar Nursing home in Dumfries, the long awaited reunion with family and friends became a reality recently, as garden visits have now been allowed to commence at the home.   There has been much careful planning and preparation for this moment behind the scenes at Barchester Healthcare, who run Lochduhar Nursing home. Social distancing was still in place, and homes that are able to take part must have a large accessible garden.

Gillian Ward, General Manager at the home, said: “This has been a much welcomed development in what have been very strange times. The visits are safe and organised, and it was wonderful to see how happy it made the residents. We will of course endeavour to keep up the high standards of care, and continue with our ever evolving life enrichment programme, to keep residents engaged. But this has been lovely to see everyone together again.”

Enid Mitchell resident at Lochduhar said: “It was so nice to see my niece again as it’s been a long time. She stays in Bristol so it’s a long way away!”.

Staff and residents at Lochduhar decided to join a virtual version of the popular horticultural show with their homemade version of the Hampton Garden Flower show, with each floor of the home creating their floral displays which were judged by General Manager, Gillian Ward and Deputy Home Manager, Kirstin Dalgarno. Everyone was a winner, with each floor receiving chocolates.

Residents at Lochduhar revelled in all things sweet on World Chocolate Day with a range of chocolatey activities on Tuesday 7th July. Instead of cake on the menu, residents enjoyed the taste of chocolate  to get everyone’s taste buds tingling from peppermint, choc orange, white chocolate, frys cream Dark chocolate , plain chocolate, chocolate caramel buttons to choose from, what’s your favourite?

Gillian Ward General Manager said: “Our head chef loves making sweet things went down a treat. It was great to give chocolate tasting a go”

The gentlemen of Lochduhar recently gathered to enjoy an evening together for some games and socialising in one of the homes spacious lounges. The gentlemen and staff gather everyone together for some games and chat over a refreshing drink.

Many of the men choose to spend time in their room, so the staff see it as a great opportunity to get them together and encourage socialising, perhaps sparking up some friendships!     On this occasion they enjoy refreshments and nibbles whilst playing a few games of pools and look forward to their next get together.

The most popular part of their get togethers is the games and activities. Dominos is a regular occurrence, with of course different card games enjoyed by all.