Activities at Westvale House Care Home

What a wonderful day we had at Westvale House celebrating St Patrick's Day!

We had Irish music playing throughout the lounge whilst our lovely residents sang along. We decorated the home in green and gold to mark the occasion, and everyone was in full attire with head boppers and glasses bringing lots of laughter and joy! Our residents shared their knowledge with a quiz and listened to poems from the Emerald Isle.

The festivities continued in the dining room where our hospitality team had made a delicious traditional Irish meal including freshly baked Guinness cake. Everyone had such a wonderful time.

As we're starting to see peeks of Spring, we wanted to get some flowers up and running, ready for planting when the weather gets a tad warmer!

Some of our ladies got their green fingers at the ready, and planted some bulbs and seeds into pots to get them started. This included some peonies, ranunculus, and some anenomes! Elsie in particular was excited for gardening weather to be back, and can't wait to plant even more outside her bedroom window in our lovely gardens.

Mother's Day celebrations!

Here at Westvale House residents, families and friends enjoyed a very special afternoon tea as the home celebrated Mother's Day.

The homes hospitality team prepared delicious treats for all to enjoy from tasty sandwiches to freshly baked scones and cakes for everyone to enjoy.

Everyone had a lovely afternoon and talk soon led to that time old debate - jam or cream first!

Happy Mother's Day to all our wonderful ladies.

Westvale House decided to celebrate a resident’s 99th birthday with a twist, by inviting her old Brownie group to join the celebrations. Eunice Stobbie was a Brownie leader for many years at St Marys in Widnes, so to honour her 99th birthday the team at invited along members of her old Brownie troop to come along and celebrate with her.

Some of Eunice’s guests included current Brownie leaders, Helen Wall and Marie Grace, along with past leaders and assistants Gwen Nuttie, Christine O’Sullivan, Christine O’Conner and Chris Hill. Some of the Brownies themselves even came along, as well as Eunice’s son Andy.

Eunice enjoyed her cake and hot beverages with her guests and was showered with lovely gifts and tales of when they all worked together. After flicking through the photo albums and singing some old campfire songs, Eunice renewed her brownie promise and received two new badges to wear with pride. They even brought along a toadstool that Eunice had made for the children in her days as a leader, which she remembered and was absolutely thrilled to see was still being used!

When asked what she thought of the day, Eunice said: “it was such a lovely surprise, I will have a day to remember for a very long time.”

Much like the rest of the world, we have been celebrating love at Westvale this week!

We have filled our beautiful home with hearts and flowers and enjoyed love songs, which brought back some treasured memories for many of our lovely residents. We started the day delivering Valentine's gifts to every one of our beautiful residents, which were handmade by one of our nurses and so appreciated by everyone.

The gift giving was followed by a special Valentine's themed bingo with prizes including chocolate and wine, which went down a treat! We finished the day on a high, with our very own 'restaurant', set up especially for residents to have a special meal with their nearest and dearest. Our Activities Coordinator Joanne decorated our conservatory with such care, it was unrecognisable! We had couples, fathers and daughters, and friends all dining in our restaurant and all had such a special evening. It's safe to say love was definitely in the air!

Here at Westvale House we prepared a traditional Burns Night feast to the tune of bagpipes!

To get the spirits going in the morning, we had a wonderful piper come and play some traditional tunes that lit up the faces of our residents, who resonated with the classic sounds or recognised the tunes. He did a lap of our grounds and then performed for our residents indoors. It was a beautiful sight to see some of them flash back to their youth or embrace their heritage! To honour the famous Scottish poet throughout the afternoon, we also hosted a poetry and music session.

Finally, to mark the Scottish institution, we also gave the time-honoured address to the ‘Great chieftain O’ the pudding’ race’ – the haggis. Our residents enjoyed delicious Haggis, Neeps and Tatties and Traditional Hot Pot, prepared by our talented chef.

We all had a wonderful time learning more about Robert Burns and the Scottish culture and traditions.