Activities at Mortain Place Care Home

Valentine’s Day can be difficult as life moves on and we grow old, but throughout February at Mortain Place we focused on not those that we miss, but those we still have, and new people in our lives. We made cards for each other in craft sessions, sang at the top of our voices in singing groups, and got ready for a big party together borrowing each other’s’ dresses.

For Valentine’s Day, we had a dinner dance, to which everyone was invited and at which everyone sat together. We moved our dining area to the bistro so we could sit at long tables and chat to each other over a three-course meal, and not worry about who had come with who, and who had a partner, etc etc. After dinner, and a few glasses of fizz, we moved down to the lounge for the disco of love songs and danced the night away!

There are thousands and thousands of national and international days to celebrate throughout the year, from the classics such as The World’s Biggest Coffee Morning and Chocolate Day, to the slightly more obscure like National Cherry Day! On 15th January, we chose to celebrate National Hat Day at Mortain Place.

In the morning, we had a lovely visit from a local primary school, The Haven. A group of Year 6 children joined us in a craft session and helped us make mini top hats. We had great fun with a variety of colours, feathers, sequins, buttons, and glue! Thank you so very much to the school and the teachers who joined us, the children were incredibly polite and helped us out heaps!

At 3pm, we sat down for a Mad Hatters’ Tea Party. The table was laid with multiple tea pots and cups, mini glass bottles labelled ‘drink me’, an array of chocolates and homemade jam tarts enticing people to ‘eat me’, with little white rabbits hopping around. The room was decorated with giant playing cards, clocks, and signs pointing this way and that way. Alice made an appearance, and everybody had a hat to wear, handmade or not.

We had a wonderful afternoon, drinking tea and wandering around Wonderland. ‘We’re all mad here!’

The Court House Museum in Pevensey contacted Mortain place care home in Pevensey Bay Road, Eastbourne and offered a full colour A3 reproduction print of their newly commissioned Painting commemorating William the Conqueror’s return to Pevensey in 1066 for a victory gathering, it also shows his half -brother Count Robert of Mortain who reigned in Eastbourne in 1067 in the picture with William the Conqueror.

The museum wrote to Mortain Place care home asking if we would like the print for our new home as we had named the home after Count Mortain and would we like to have more information on the history of Robert of Mortain.

Peter Harrison the curator of the Museum kindly visited Mortain Place care home spoke to the residents and staff about the history of the painting and then had the picture framed for Mortain Place it will now take pride of place in our reception area at the home.

On Friday 6th December, people all over the country dressed as elves to spread festive cheer and raise money for those affected by dementia, organised by the Alzheimer’s Society. Here at Mortain Place we joined in by donning Christmas hats and glasses, singing along to music, and playing mischievous Elf games.

Teams raced against each other to do the Elves' jobs; sorting bags of skittles into individual colours, and wrapping up presents with their wrists tied together! The winning team was decided as the final game came to a close, when they battled to see who could empty a box of tissues with one hand the fastest, creating a flurry of snow all over the place.

We wrapped up with glasses of fizz and a dance to the festive music!

Mortain place care home opened on 9th October 2019 and we had 4 communities in our new care home that were looking for new names, so we ran a competition with local Age concern staff and visitors to name our communities.

The entries came in thick and fast and from those we chose a winner who is Jenni Obinkwo who works for Age Concern in Eastbourne, Jenni came up with the names based on "Mortain" place these are Pevensey, Launceston, Montacute and Normandy which were administrations owned by Count Mortain.

Jenni was presented with her gift of a Hamper from Doofley's Deli in Eastbourne town by Karen Howell General Manager of Mortain Place care home.

We organised a Christmas Fayre at Mortain place and the turnout was huge, it was opened by the Mayor of Eastbourne Steve Wallis. The mayor met with the residents and we had lots of local retail stalls and games' stalls, run by our residents and their families.

Father Christmas saw 100 children who all got a present from Santa,  the day was a huge success and we raised £900 for local charities.