Activities at Oaklands Care Home

We recently celebrated Indian culture with a special afternoon of fun with Indian dancing and Indian food, all provided by our head chef, John, and all his family and friends who joined us. We were excited by all the bright colours and jewellery that the ladies were wearing. 

The curry and other nibbles were delicious.

Martin recently enjoyed his wish trip, which was to visit his old school that he was the former principal of many years ago. He was met by the current principal, who gave him a wonderful detailed tour, showing him the new library and staff room along with his old office and desk, which are still very much in use. 

Martin played a very important role in setting up the World Tree statue, which is located in the grounds of the school, and he was overwhelmed to see this again and took time to sit next to it and enjoy the peace, although Martin added, ”the children are the blood that runs through the school, and they should be here”. Martin was taken to bake a few times because of how wonderful it all was, but felt strongly that he would like to visit again when the children return in September.  

This week some of our plans have changed to allow us to enjoy and adapt to this wonderful weather we have, time spent relaxing in the shade enjoying our courtyards and a mobile ice-cream trolley giving out refreshing strawberries and ice cream from our activity staff. 

This allows residents to keep hydrated in a delicious way.

What a fabulous day we had, sharing our colleagues' national celebration of Philippines Independence Day.
We were fortunate to enjoy delicious traditional foods and see an array of artifacts from the Philippines.

That afternoon, we celebrated with a live performance via zoom from Las Pinas Band all the way from the Philippines, and it brought great joy to our residents.

The launch of our Dementia disco was quite simply more fantastic than we had thought it would be.
We enjoyed an hour and a half with a live DJ playing all our favourite songs from a playlist and requests made in the evening. We had a glow station with lots of fun things for our residents to wear and enjoy, from ties, bracelets and wands.

The evening was a huge success, way more than we had first imagined, giving residents, staff and families a chance to connect, and enjoy letting their hair down. Our DJ left the evening feeling fulfilled and said “that has given me a real sense of satisfaction that I haven’t had from any event I’ve done, and I’ve been a DJ for over 20 years.”

Kate and Sarah danced the whole time and were both disappointed when the night came to a close. Others danced, sat relaxed and then danced some more. It's safe to say we all slept well that night.  

We celebrated VE day across the whole week, soaking up everything that we could, ensuring all our residents that wanted to remember and reminisce were able to and those that wanted to celebrate could. We enjoyed a vintage tea trolley which visited all the residents' rooms along with room singing from our professional choir teacher and a small group of staff and residents that are able.

We had a large street party with music provided by Luan, which was fantastic with lots of dancing and singing, and we all took time to sing the national anthem and pause for a moment to reflect. At the weekend, we were treated to a drive-by of some military vehicles from our local air museum and some lucky residents even got a ride around in them. 

We visited our local village church to look at the flower display created specifically for VE day and later that day we attended our village celebrations on the village green to enjoy music and ice-cream. We were all pretty exhausted by the end of it, but we finished the week full of memories and reflections on how lucky we are.    

We recently celebrated World Bee day and what a fun day it was. We asked staff and residents to dress in bee costumes or yellow and black. We had some outstanding costumes and even had a competition for best dressed with a joint 1st place from Cristina, our deputy, and Gabi, our clinical lead. 

The day was filled with all things bee-related, with bee craft-themed activities in the morning, a honey tasting social in the afternoon and a tea party with honey biscuits. Our dressed-up bees visited every room so that all our residents cared for in their beds were a part of the fun.  

Our staff supported the social media hype and carried out our very own ice bucket challenge to raise awareness for MIND charity, then challenged our two sisters' home in Barchester and got the fun started.

Cristina, our deputy, was our brave victim and Gabi, our clinical lead, couldn’t wait to step up to pour the bucket of iced water with staff and residents watching on laughing and cheering. It provoked conversations about why we are doing it and then got people talking about their feelings, so it achieved what we had hoped. 

Time for the mini-bus to get a clean. This is one of Ray's favourite things to do as he used to take great pride in cleaning his car. 

Kate joined us this time and both myself and Kate got some stick from Ray for “not doing a proper job”!!

We certainly had a laugh whilst doing this and got a little wet along the way, but a good time was had by all.