Our stories

Peace of mind

Moving into a care home made easy

Our care team are here to make sure that making the move is as easy as possible for you and your loved one. If you still need reassurance, here are some stories from our residents, their families and our care team.

We've been preparing the home with Easter decorations, including bunting outside and in. The residents enjoyed putting together Easter baskets ready to be filled with sweet treats and decorating our Easter branches with eggs, making a wonderful colourful display.

Easter Decorating

Bowerfield House have planted a beautiful tree called Malus for the Queen`s Platinum Jubilee. Malus is standing proudly in the front garden, when it grows we will have beautiful pink flowers plus yummy apples that the chef can pick and make a apple sauce.

The Queen's Canopy - The Platinum Jubilee 2022

Our wonderful colleague Maria has been busy again baking cakes and brownies and creating beautiful chocolates for us all to enjoy over Easter!

Taking time to have those special 1-2-1 interactions is invaluable for those living with us.

Butterfly moments

Clarendon Court are raising funds for the Alzheimer's Society this Easter with their cake and chocolate sale and raffle. All cakes lovingly baked by the wonderful Maria, our very own Mary Berry! We'll start our diets next month ....

We have decorated the home for Easter and the resident's got involved. We had so much fun!

Easter Decorating

The Hawthorns are getting in the Easter spirit. Today the residents made an Easter Tree. They painted and coloured in small Easter eggs which they then hung on a small branch. This is displayed in our newly decorated lounge to start the celebrations

Easter Spirit at Hawthorns

The people living at Bridge House are very creative and enjoy their art club. Recently they have been tissue paper hearts and enjoying some mindfulness colouring.

We all know that movement is very important for us all and a Bridge House all the team including the manager Raluca like to get involved with the classes that we have happening. Sometimes we use a balloon or a tambourine to make movement fun.

One of the activities on our programme is flower arranging which is enjoyed by a mix of people at the home. Once the flowers have all been arranged beautifully by the people living with us we then display them all around the home for everyone to enjoy.

Flower Arranging

The people living with us wanted to enjoy a pamper and wanted to have a spa day so we made sure that we created that for them.

Spa Day at Bridge House

We love a birthday at Bridge House and having the opportunity to really spoil the people who are living with us. Each person gets their favourite cake baked with their favourite sweets or treat on the top. There is also a card from the team and a gift to enjoy and a good sing along!

Birthdays at Bridge House

The Queen’s Green Canopy (QGC) is a tree planting initiative created to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022. Everyone across the UK is being invited to plant a tree to celebrate.

Jubilee Tree Picking

Some of the gentleman living at Bridge House wanted to have a Gentleman's Club where they can get together. With the home being conveniently next door to the local pub, they were more then happy to host.

Gentleman's Club

Team recognition is high on agenda here at Kents Hill as we all get together every month for a team lunch to celebrate our achievements and to announce the winner of The Employee of The month Award.

Team Recognition at Kents Hill

The people living at Ashmead wanted to join the Lifestyle Co- Ordinator’s in planning ahead for their Easter Celebrations. Easter baskets and cards have been constructed for colleagues and family members and we are all looking forward to being able to give them out soon.

Easter is coming...

Well done to Appletree Court and Chef Ali for this outstanding Maltesers cake replicating the chocolates falling from the packet. The cake base was a lemon sponge with flakes all around the sides. The judging panel commented “It's a marvel as to how you did that – A triumph !”

Chef Ali is the MMCG Easter Eggstravaganza Winner

Our weekly chair exercise group is a hit with the residents. We have progressed from our first gathering and really cannot wait to see our future results. We finished on a fun note with some ring tossing and our winner managed five rings in a row, yay team!

What is more comforting than the smell of baking on a wet rainy day? What delicious results we enjoyed. We mixed our dough in the morning, and after lunch we rolled, cut and baked. The resulting biscuits were delicious and the shared experience meant smiles all around.

Baking Shortbread

It was great to see residents and staff exploring music together this week. Using the keyboard prompted one of our residents to talk about how she had spent many pleasurable hours playing the piano and even the organ too.

Exploring Music

Our lovely residents decided they wanted a quiz, so we had a quiz. What a giggle we had. Laughter makes a dreary day brighter!

We have had such fun at Clarendon Court decorating our Easter Bonnets. I'm sure you will agree that the winning hats are just fantastic and well deserving of a prize. We can't wait for our Easter Bonnet parade now!

Speaking with our residents about what quality means to them we decided to create a quality tree. Some heart warming requests came to light. We pledge to our residents we will do all we can to bring them to life after all what matters to them most certainly matters to us.

One of the male residents that live with us requested to have a meal with his wife who also resides with us. The meal was enjoyed by the both of them.

We received chocolates for the staff from family of a late resident

Gift For The Staff

At Ashfield Court we looked over lots of books and shared all the memories of walking that some of the residents had done!

National walking day!

Here at The Westbourne we have been busy preparing for Easter and enjoying some pet therapy.

Easter Crafts and Pet Therapy

For the Easter Challenge we have been doing a lot of baking! We have made 2 Easter themed cakes to be enjoyed by our residents with a lovely cup of tea.

Easter Cake Competition

Everyone enjoyed taking part in Manorhey's Got Talent by showing off their singing voices. Everyone had lots of fun with one another, duetting and dancing to their favourite tunes!

Manorhey's Got Talent

We enjoyed some lovely pancakes for pancake day last month, we chopped our fruit in the morning after making our batter which we left to rest until after lunch. When it was time we set our tables with our toppings and used our crepe machine to make our pancakes.

Pancake Day at The Belvedere

‘Cedar Court took part in the incentive to plant a tree in honour of the Queens Jubilee’

Jubilee Tree Planting

For one of our group activities we all played Irish themed bingo!

Irish Themed Bingo

In preparation for our St Patrick's Day party we decorated the lounge/dining hall with balloons, banners and lots of other fun decorations.

St Patrick's Day Decorations

Now that the sun is shining and the weather is a little warmer, people living at Buckingham House were excited to get back into their garden and play some games.

At our St Patrick's Day party we had many different activities on each table for all our residents to take part in.

St Patrick Day Activities

There is something really lovely about visiting your local garden centre, they always seem to have something for everyone to look at it.

Garden Centre Visits

Our residents turned their hand in still life drawing today. Some truly budding artists wouldn't you agree?

Howgate's Artists

We are celebrating National Bake Week from today, Monday 4th April for the next 7 days and we would like to take this opportunity and introduce our Baking Queen Lisa. Lisa always does her best to surprise us with her delicious baking creations.

National Bake Week

Bingo is a very competitive game here at Kents Hill. It’s a must have weekly game and we get very competitive as the rewards are very sweet. We watch our cards closely and listen out for the numbers and clap for whoever gets the line

1 week to go!

Maria Mallaband & Countrywide Care Awards 2021

Care Award Votings

We enjoyed a different style of exercise Friday morning, we used some sensory fidget toys called pop tubes that are great for arm exercises as well as a lot of fun to play with.

Sensory Activity

Last week we launched our new Hope Green Newsletter which created much interest between staff and residents. It was sent digitally to families too encouraging them to get involved, and we received feedback and thanks.

Hope Green Newsletter

The Belvedere took part in our regional chip butty competition this week.

Chip Butty Challenge

Our first efforts by our gardening club have taken root! Our residents have been keeping a close eye and our seed tray are germinating. So far we have strawberries, tomatoes, nasturtium, pansy, alyssum and marigolds.

We decided to make one of our favourites today Cornflake Tart. Doreen, Annette, Ann and I made this in the morning ready to have for dessert after our lunchtime meal, this was served with custard and enjoyed by all of our residents.

Cornflake Tarts

Every lady was celebrated in River View today – both Mothers and Mother figures.

As River View continued their virtual holidays, our next stop was Portugal. Today was a 'flip flop' day for sure.

Next Stop Portugal

River View staff, visitors and residents collected donations totalling £38.00 for Red Nose Day this year, with 1 person winning a wonderful chocolate fountain as a thank you for their contribution over the weekend.

Red Nose Day Celebrations

His creations consist of a Bombay Crispy coating with a difference using his own secret recipe in a hollowed out baguette. Alan also composed triple baked chips in a club sandwich accompanied by Mumbai relish, Dijon mustard mayo, gherkins scraps, pickled egg and pickled onion.

Meet our chef Alan Watt

River View celebrated St Patrick’s Day as we continued on our virtual holiday tour by travelling to Ireland for the occasion.

Green was the colour of the day, even visiting Ambulance crew members were dressed for the celebrations in their green uniforms!

St Patricks Day Celebrations