Activities at Wheatlands Care Home

Beryl and Wendy enjoyed a fabulous morning walking around Percy Thrower’s garden centre looking at all the fragrant flowers and beautiful plants after which we admired the fabulous pumpkin and Christmas displays. After all the excitement we needed a sit down and it was hot chocolates and cappuccinos all round where residents reminisced about their own gardens. Beryl told everyone ‘My husband used to bud roses and we would go all around the country to show them, thank you for brining me’

Residents at Wheatlands love to watch live entertainment after putting a request of facebook to see if anyone from the local community would like to come and perform we were inundated with offers. We were lucky enough to have  ‘Belly Up’ a local belly dance group come and dance for us. After their fabulous performance the dancers offered to teach residents and staff a few moves ‘It’s a lot hard than it looks’ said Christine. The performance was especially important for one of our residents Ergin who is of Turkish decent he cried tears of happiness through the performance as he reminisced about his childhood years it was made even more special as his wife joined him for the performance and then they enjoyed taking part at the end and showing us their moves. Ergin’s wife Christine thanked us as they were able to make beautiful memories together.

Albert has always been a lover of gardening, and keeping a  well-tended  garden has been of the up most importance and ensuring the correct jobs where done at the right time of year. Over the past few months Albert has been pruning roses, weeding and generally helping to get the grounds ready for the winter.

Albert thought the front of the grounds was not as colourful as it could be in the spring months so we brought a variety of spring bulbs which he enjoyed planting he is looking forward to seeing them grow. ‘When I see my first daffodil, I know the summer is just round the corner.’ Albert said.

Family, friends and the local community joined residents and staff for our annual family fun day, luckily enough the rain held off and the sun popped out just in time so we could all enjoy the afternoon and make some wonderful memories together.

We a traditional carnival theme with several stalls including a residents craft stall with an array of goods on off from homemade plum jam to handmade lavender bags, hook a duck, a tombola with some fantastic prizes donated by friends, family and the local community. James a night time carer here at Wheatlands and finalist of Telford’s got Talent sang the afternoon away. We also had a good old fashioned coconut shy Christine was over the moon when she manged to knock not one but two coconuts off she said the best part was she got to eat them.

After carrying out a residents survey recently  it became apparent that residents would like different guest speakers and to continue more with past hobbies and interests. Activity Coordinator Katie Macey reached out to the local community for volunteers to come into Wheatlands and be guest speakers from Poetry to Belly dancers!

Ian Parr a local published poet got in touch and offered to run a monthly poetry group with his partner Ann. Ian would share poetry he himself had wrote and read some old classics. Residents also had the opportunity to share poetry they had wrote themselves. On the day unfortunately Mr Walker  was unable to join us we did not want him to miss out as he has a very keen interest in writing and the arts. He can often be heard reciting Shakespeare or talking about when he himself used to perform on stage. A team member joined him in his room and with the use of technology we were able to arrange a facetime session which enabled Mr Walker to still be a part of the poetry group. He was so thrilled to still be a part of the session and join in with his friends.

After a recent resident’s meeting the Gentleman of Wheatlands decided they would like to use some of their existing skills that they previously used most of them enjoy gardening but wanted to do something else.

So this month after receiving a delivery of bird houses and nesting boxes from a local community owned charity WTOF ‘Welcome to our future’ which are promoting and delivering sustainable development across the Marches in rural West Midlands. A scheme to provide bird boxes and feeders to care homes, hospices, schools and other community spaces.

The delivery gave us the perfect opportunity to use those skills  over a cup of coffee and also do some reminiscing about DIY projects that the gents had done from putting shelves up to building a summerhouse at the bottom of the garden and also a few near misses!

The gents enjoyed building the amazing RSPB Gothic bird hanging tables and nesting boxes. Spending time outside in nature is linked to both cognitive benefits and improvements in mood, mental health and emotional wellbeing.  And of course, the birds benefit as well!