As always, we have been very busy with a vast range of activities. We’ve picked a selection to share with you here!

Summer Fair

We want to say a huge thank you to all those who came along to our Summer Fair and helped us to raise just over £400 for our residents’ activity fund.

We all had so much fun with face painting, games, decorating cakes, a raffle, tombola, a visit from the ice cream van and guessing the number of balloons in Tasha’s car! Well done to our hairdresser Nadine for winning £10 for guessing the correct amount of balloons – there were 79!

Well done also to all who won a prize in the raffle and tombola and a massive thank you to Mary and Russell West for holding a stall of handmade items and raising £49 for our residents’ fund.

With some of the money raised, we organised a tea party along with entertainer Richie D James!

Postcards Of Kindness

#postcardsofkindness

We are excited to be part of the Postcards of Kindness initiative, which is running across the whole country and internationally.
If you are going away on holiday or even a day trip out somewhere, then why not send a postcard to a care home and give the residents something to smile about?

The Firs is now registered along with hundreds of other care homes, and we are all sending and receiving postcards to each other as well as receiving from lovely members of the public who just want to spread some joy!

To become a part, simply head over and join the Facebook group page #postcardsofkindness, where you will find all the addresses of care homes taking part, including ours.

Our residents have been overwhelmed with all the postcards we have received from around the world and from other care homes too. We have so far received around 23 postcards from places including Taiwan, Norfolk, Shropshire and Australia.

Our residents have also enjoyed writing back on postcards with pictures from Somerset, and our lovely resident Cliff enjoyed taking a trip to the post box to send them off for us!

Tea Party

Our residents, along with some family members, enjoyed taking part in our latest tea party – we always love these. We booked an entertainer who sang a vast range of classics and ‘Golden Oldies’! In the morning, we ran a cookery class, and the residents decided they wanted to bake their own cakes for the tea party, so we made different flavour cupcakes and a delightful Victoria sponge! The tea party itself was enjoyed by all, and even a few of our residents’ family members got up and danced along to a few songs. Please look at out for the date of our next one!

Activity Lounge

Our activity team, along with some of our residents and relatives, have been very busy working hard, converting the top lounge into an activity room for our residents. We have been adding a splash of colour to make it welcoming and cheerful and are thrilled with the results.
Thank you so much to the generous people local to us who have kindly donated furniture and paint.

Our residents have been turning the furniture from shabby to chic, sanding and painting and even decoupaging doorknobs with napkins. Take a look at the transformation of our welsh dresser, now all stocked up with ingredients for our cookery classes and china tea sets for our tea parties. With just one more dresser to finish off, our kitchen area is nearly complete.

We have also added pictures and quotes of idols in our music corner, including Elvis and Marilyn Monroe and we are currently painting a sideboard for our music station, making it look retro with mint green and white.

We kindly also had some moveable storage units donated from a nearby shop that was closing down and our residents and our housekeeper’s granddaughter have been having fun painting them with a splash of colour!

Well-done and thank you to all who have taken part in the project, our residents Neil, Cliff, Jim, Mary, Jim’s wife Rose and his brother Tom and also to our handyman, Jason.