Activities at Tennyson Wharf Care Home

Saturday afternoon at Ashminster House gets very competitive with friends and family having a scrabble battle. 

This game was led by our resident ambassador Janet, who motivates the residents to join in the fun. The residents and their family enjoyed inventing new words to create the new highest word score, which is currently at 15!

At a recent residents’ meeting, residents requested that we play a few of the more old-fashioned party games, starting with Consequences.  

The idea is that each player has a piece of paper and writes the beginning of a story. They fold the paper over, so the story is not visible, and pass it to the next person who will write the next part of the story. After passing the papers around the group several times, the story is complete and then read aloud with hilarious consequences.

It was a really funny game with surprising stories. Some of our residents were quite in tune with each other and made sweet and logical stories, the others were random and funny. We will certainly play again. 

We enjoyed an afternoon of making our own music with hand bells. The bells and the musical chords are colour coordinated for ease, but it was the rhythm that was the tricky part! Although Christmas was over, we chose a few well-known Christmas Carols to practice as Jingle Bells is familiar to all.  

After a few attempts, we managed it all the way through. It was exciting and a huge cheer of satisfaction went up as we completed it. Residents joked that we have started to practice early for a concert next Christmas, we may just be ready in time!

As the year came to a close, we were able to have fun with one of our favourite visitors, Michelle and her animals. Michelle has close to 30 animals that she takes care of and brings a selection to us for each visit.

Our favourite is Simon the cat, who happily accepts all of our cuddles! The tortoise and chicken are fascinating to watch too. Our resident Yvonne was excited to be photographed with a variety of animals so that her family overseas would be able to see what she was getting up to at Tennyson Wharf. 

We have been so lucky to have a wide variety of entertainers and animals all year long. It would be hard to choose a favourite! This Christmas Season we have enjoyed a wonderful concert from Abi on the flute being accompanied by Fergus on the piano. 

Our residents loved the soothing sounds as we took a moment to pause before the hustle and bustle of the season started. John on the Harp has also been a treat with a medley of Christmas and popular songs.  We also need to thank Emma and her dance troupe of primary school children who danced and sang their hearts out for our residents.

Our residents who attend our Knit and Natter group, which is hosted bi-weekly by Sturton and Stowe Knitters, were able to place the most creative and detailed topper on the post box on Sturton High Street.  It has taken the group many hours to prepare the Santa, Reindeer and mice. 

It was a very cold, blustery day but we braved the elements as it took six people to anchor the topper. We were given a mention on Radio Lincs the following day as the show host drove past and saw the shenanigans!