Staff and residents were treated to an interactive virtual floristry masterclass courtesy of Master Florist, Michal Kowalski, from Blooming Haus. 

Blooming Haus started with a small pop-up shop in Chelsea. They have since blossomed spectacularly on to the floristry scene as ‘floral engineers’, carving themselves an outstanding reputation as one of the UK’s most innovative floral design studios. The company is the vision of Master Florist, Michal Kowalski and his business partner, Michael Dariane. The pair bring a completely fresh approach to floristry and their ambition to push the boundaries of traditional floristry has laid the foundations of Blooming Haus’ success to date.

Residents and staff were invited to gather together flowers and foliage chosen by themselves and follow Michal’s demonstration to create their own displays. Residents’ arrangements will be entered into a Facebook competition judged by Michal and Michael to win Love2Shop vouchers.

Staff and residents were buzzing when they celebrated World Bee Day on May 20th.

Created by the UN, World Bee Day, is an annual global event raising awareness of the importance of bees and beekeeping for the survival of our ecosystems. Three out of four food crops across the globe rely on bees and other pollinators but those pollinators are under threat from human activities.

Residents had a bee-rilliant time learning about the history of bee-keeping and the importance of bees for food production, meeting a local bee keeper virtually and enjoying a tour of his/her hives, holding a tasting of local honey and planting some bee friendly flowers in the garden.

We would like you to meet John, who is our Resident Ambassador at Westwood House. John is often the first person new residents are introduced to and he is very welcoming to anyone new and introduces them to the other residents.

John has lived with us for many years and is a real part of the family at Westwood. He often also meets new staff applicants when they come for an interview and then gives us feedback from his point of view. Today he was making sure everyone had glass of sherry and some chocolates and roses to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

On Thursday 28th January, we celebrated the tastiest day of the year: Chocolate Day! Much fun was had tasting lots of treats, like fruit, marshmallows and bananas, dipped in the gorgeous melted chocolate.

Despite is being after lunch, everyone had a good appetite and had lots of laughs dunking the treats on skewers into the chocolate fountain. Ruth, our new Activities Coordinator, and Robert, our Host, both made the afternoon very successful.

There was lots of laughter and lots of people with chocolate around their mouths whilst trying to maintain some dignity.

We celebrated National Storytelling Day by having a group discussion with some of our residents about their favourite stories whilst growing up and later into their adult life.They also played a game whereby one person starts a story and then the next person carries on. Ruth facilitated this session for those who wanted to take part and they all really enjoyed the activity.