Residents and staff at Woodland View  have been cheering on Team GB throughout the Paris Olympics.  The home has been decked out with flags and residents have been enjoying all the action over the past two weeks.  Everyone at the home has loved seeing all of our amazing Olympians progress.

Sports fans at Woodland View were delighted to be able to continue the amazing Summer of Sport by watching the Games after the excitement of the Euros and Wimbledon.  Residents and staff have had a brilliant time getting together to watch all of the different sporting fixtures from rowing to cycling, gymnastics to boxing, show jumping to judo.

Residents and staff have also been taking part in their own weekly Olympics with the help of local RISE Sports, a local business that helps provide chair exercise for all abilities.

Residents, staff, relatives and visitors came to support our summer fayre.  Local community stalls attended  with jewellery , home fragrance, bath and body products, cakes and chocolates. We also had our tombola, and our really popular bottle tombola, were you can win anything from water to wine! All the proceeds from the tombola will go to the residents fund, which will then go towards sensory items, and some items for the garden, at residents request. We enjoyed a visit from the ice-cream van, and entertainment from Tessa who sung hits from all genres and eras, everyone had a lovely time, and the rain was nowhere in sight, which was a welcome relief!

Residents, staff and visitors enjoyed an animal visit from Together Animal Therapy, with a variety of Geckos, Snakes, Guinea Pigs, Rabbits, Tortoises. This was such a lovely session, and a lot of our staff and residents were really excited to hold Marshmallow, a beautiful and friendly snake, who just loved to curl up and snuggle. The geckos were both really popular, with lots of strokes and everyone commenting on how soft they were! Treacle the rabbit, was soft and really loved being cuddled, and stroked on the forehead, which everyone took turns doing! We have already been asked to book another session in, which we can’t wait for, residents, staff and visitors!

Colchester Castle Walk & Talk

This week's Walk and Talk was amazing!

With the gorgeous little legs from Butterfly Barns Day Nursery - very adept at playing hop little bunny and pushing a wheelchair, along with residents, staff, friends and family from and Woodland View Care Home we strolled in the sunshine learning all about the history of the castle thanks to the incredibly knowledgeable Di Bignell from Colchester Heritage Tours. We learnt so much but thankfully there was no exam to complete!

Then as we entered the Colchester Museums Castle we were immediately in awe of the brand new display there. The travelling Gaia globe artworkhttps://colchester.cimuseums.org.uk/events/gaia/. It is beyond stunning.

We were treated like VIPs by Holly and Tom who gave us even more of a history lesson while enjoying a cuppa in what we thought was the lunch room, but turned out to be the site of the ex-jailors house! Thankfully none of us were detained and we continued the morning chariot racing and making a wish on a lucky statue.

Thank you to absolutely everyone who made today possible.

One of our favourite events is our cultural days! Residents love trying the different food, learning about cultures and watching dancing or presentations.

This month it was the turn of Africa! We celebrated the culture and food from Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Kenya.

Residents had a traditional African lunch, then in the afternoon, staff and families were invited to eat, and join in the fun with residents. Our fabulous staff members Jennifer, Joy, Ope, Caltas and Darius treated us to a traditional dance with some really upbeat and fun African music.

Ope then went on to show us a slideshow and tell us all the traditions and cultures. It was such a lovely, fun and informative day. Many thanks to our staff for always going above and beyond for our residents and families, on all our cultural days.

We held our pudding club with tempting and delicious desserts made by our Head Chef Iuliana, and other talented staff. The Mayor of Colchester was delighted to receive an invitation, and loved spending time with residents enjoying some traditional and cultural desserts from Hungary and India.

The Mayor, Lesley Scott-Boutell said how much she loved the idea of reminiscing about puddings and sharing recipes, commenting that "It must really give the residents a sense of community and to share a loved family recipe, is such a special thing to do"