Charlton Kings Care Home

Whilst John has been sunning himself on holiday and enjoying a well deserved break, Our lovely Tess has stepped in as activities co-ordinator this week. 'Have had the best week as activity coordinator this week! Sorry to every one that I’ve irritated with constant chirpiness'! Here's a little insight as to what Tess and our amazing resident's have been doing.....
Spring has well and truly sprung this week at Charlton Kings Care Home and we have all enjoyed an action packed w...eek of fun in the sun!
On Monday our book club caught up with their current read ‘Murder on Sea’. Our crime solving residents put their heads together and tested their sleuthing skills to try and solve ‘whodunnit’ before DCI Mike McGuire cracks the case!
On Tuesday our gardening club spent a happy afternoon in the sun learning about the many possible uses for our garden herbs! We used old support stockings to create individual bouquet garni’s and planted chives, parsley and oregano into pots to create a truly sensory experience for everyone to enjoy! Our sunflower competition has really heated up this week as we transferred our fast growing seedlings from their pots into the garden. Currently they are all shooting up fast and it will be difficult to pick a winner! After our busy morning, the residents enjoyed chilling out with a relaxing health and wellbeing session in the afternoon. Cool drinks were served whilst Tanya from G Fitness gave bespoke chair massages, manicures and pedicures were on offer and we tried out some simple meditation techniques!
On Wednesday the hugely popular Walks with Hawks were back to visit us bringing a variety of beautiful hawks, owls and falcons for the residents to meet and handle. We were all thrilled to see our old friend Ebu the owl again and he certainly seemed just as excited to be back with us as he led the way – flying happily in to greet everyone! We also welcomed students in from Cheltenham College and enjoyed reminiscing about our own school days and summer holidays whilst listening to the children talking about their own experiences.
The week finished with the highlight of our social calendar – fish n chips and a good old game of bingo! Prizes were handed out and enjoyed (I’m sure there was some cheating going on!)
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'Why can we not have this every week'? Was one comment after our first cheese and wine event of the year. A brief introduction was given on the production of wine, before we got down to the serious business of sampling, Red, Sparkling White and Rose' wines. Just to help it go down, there were wonderful cheese boards playing host to a selection of cheeses. A wonderful social occasion when we all got together, we will certainly be having it again!
Tuesday was an opportunity to... try another new activity; boxing training. Yes you heard me right! Gloves were donned, pads provided, and great laughter was had! However, do not fear, there was not a black eye in the house, just good clean fun had by all.
When the sun was shining we took the opportunity to enjoy it, heading to Cox’s Meadow we had a great time watching the world go by.
It wasn’t the last of the laughter as we have also had live entertainment which produced a great sing a long and even a bit of impromptu Morris dancing!
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Hello, hope you all enjoyed a scrummy Easter! We have! We had our very own eggstraspecial Easter bunny delivering eggs to all the residents on Sunday. Thankfully, we also worked some calories off with a little exercise and sing a long with Rosie from musical moments on Easter Monday. Our little chicks are no longer little, we wave a sad good bye to them today in what has been a privilege to share their first two weeks of life, they will be missed! We have also embarked on a ...wonderful new art project with Eunice from Mojo Art, linking in with Art in Care day on 28th of June. Residents are contributing their talent with butterflies designed by them going towards a ‘Tree of Life’ celebration held in Kingshayes National Trust. Butterflies from all around Britain will come together to create a fantastic display which our butterflies will be a part off. On the 28th of June we will also host our own art gallery which will display all the wonderful creations of our residents so please pop in and take a look. Outside in the garden its gathering apace. A new large trug has arrived so that our green fingered residents can have some fun from growing their own this summer. Rollis, our wonderful handyman is up date and repairing our pagoda ready for the barmy summer evenings to come when all can enjoy a moment in the garden. Roll on summer!
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What a wonderful week we have had! We have all been entranced, watching our wonderful chicks break out of their eggs and hatch out into beautiful bundles of yellow fluff. Every cheep and flutter of their tiny wings has brought smiles of delight to all of us.
Our chicks have not been the only new life emerging here at the home. In Gardening Club we have seen our sun flower seeds burst from the earth and reach for the skies and now the debate...When will be the best time to pl...ant the seedlings out? From small pots of earth to tall plants in just one week, amazing! As you can see in the pictures the race is well and truly on for the tallest sunflower.
We have also had the good fortune of a superb visit from the good folks of ‘wild science’ who brought in a wonderful collection of animals. Giving the opportunity for all of our residents to see, feel and get close to animals they might never have seen before. By far the most popular was the albino African hedgehog. Its been a wonderful week at the home. Happy Easter to all! 🐥
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The week got off to a wonderful start as residents joined Rosie from Music and Movement in singing and dancing. The fun was so dazzlingly good some of us, as you can see, had to wear shades! 😎
Later in the week we prepared for Easter by coming together at our cookery club and made some Easter biscuit, with nutmeg, sugar, lemon rind, flour and currants and eggs as ingredients it really wasn’t a surprise that none of our Easter biscuits have lasted until Easter. Most were snapp...ed up only hours aftercoming out of the oven!
Fun time of carpet bowls had us remembering the hot and sunny days of summers past. Ladies and gentlemen dressed in white, and the sound of bowl tapping against bowl drifting on the breeze.
Hopefully summer days will soon be here and we can get out in the garden as we have new vegetable table built and ready to use and gardeners keen to get out and put it to good use!
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Summer is here! (You might not believe it looking out of the window), but it’s official, summer time has begun and with that, brings the start of a new season of the gardening club here at Charlton Kings Care Home. Nicola from ‘Alive’ brought her gardening expertise and the wonderful Ann from our local church brought her enthusiasm. Together, with a keen group of gardeners, we have started several projects. We have a sunflower competition, all residents have planted seeds and... now we are eagerly waiting for them to germinate in our conservatory. Flowers boxes and pots have also been created and are looking splendid. In the weeks ahead we are building a raised garden table so when the weather gets warm the gardening club will be growing their own vegetables, bring on the sun shine!
Keeping us fit for all our gardening work was Tanya from G Fitness, working on all our important muscle groups to keep everyone as strong and as mobile as possible.
On Wednesday Anna from Timeless Tunes entertained everyone with a wonderful selection of music and songs that had every one smiling and singing a long.
Of course we have a Grand National Sweep Stake where residents and staff alike are joining in to win a big Easter Egg, good luck every one!!
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☀️ Hello from Charlton Kings!
Spring is finally here and the sun is out, the sky is blue, life is returning to the garden. This week we celebrate Mothering Sunday and bring a little piece of spring into the home.On Tuesday afternoon we enjoyed some flower arranging. Carnations of pink, red, yellows where mixed with an assortment of flowers as residents enjoyed creating table decorations for the dining room.
The magic continued on Wednesday as Eunice from Mojo Art Club inspire...d residents to create their own fairy village in paint and pencils.The sun was out and bird song was coming in from the open windows as residents enjoyed bringing their individual pieces of art work together to create the finished scene. Later in the year we shall have a showing of all the wonderful art work that has been produced.
We would like to take this opportunity to wish all Mothers and Grand-Mothers a wonderful Mother’s day on Sunday. See you next week!
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Monday got off to a wonderful start as the fantastic performers from Tickled Pink Productions gave a superb song and dance show, tap dancing, swift costume changes and lovely songs, to sing a long...resulted in all residents who attended having a very enjoyable time!
Wednesday and we said hello to ‘Rollo’ and ‘Lollipop’ two adorable Shetland ponies that visited the home. Residents faces lit up with pleasure as they were afforded a close encounter with them, enabling residents to touch, stroke and feed the ponies.
Thursday we had another treat as the ‘Silver Threads’ dramatic society visited and provided a slice of old time music hall entertainment, with wonderful songs and amazing costumes it transported us all back to the heyday of the music halls and was immensely enjoyed by all!

🍀Here at the home this week there has been an influx of sudden mysterious sightings of wee leprechauns, easily recognised by their tall green top hats and ginger beards (both for male and females!) They have been making appearances all week in the build up to St Patricks day on the 17th of March. Maybe it was the lively Irish music and dancing that Rosie from musical moments entertained us with on Monday that first lured the ‘little people’ in. In reminiscing club we talked a...bout St Patrick (he was originally a welsh priest) and Ireland, enjoying a ‘fairy tale’ quiz. Your starter for ten is: The troll under the bridge is in this story….?
Students from Cheltenham College kindly performed a musical recital for the residents this week; we were all very impressed by the musical talent on display and I would like to give a big thank you to the students and Cheltenham college for providing us with a wonderful afternoon of entertainment!
When the weather is nice (apparently that does happen occasionally), we often take the opportunity to give residents a chance to get out and about. More often than not, this is to Cox’s Meadow in Cheltenham, a beautiful park just a short walk from the home. This week we discovered in our travels, a wonderful wooden sculpture that really had us smiling, so thank you to the mystery carver who made our walk this week that little bit more interesting. 🐎I believe there's been some horse racing going on this week near here so we thought we would join in and have a sweep stake on the Gold Cup today. A fun way to end what has been a fun week. I wish everyone the best of luck as this traditional Irish blessing goes:
May you have the hindsight to know where you’ve been,
The foresight to know where you’re going,
And the insight to know when you’re going too far. 🍀
Answer is...'The Three Billy Goats Gruff'.
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As you can see in the photos this week with the wonderful Tanya from G Fitness it was not about we 'can’t can’t' here at the home, but much more what we 'can can'. With our high kicks and armchair exercises, everyone enjoyed themselves so much they hardly noticed how much they were benefiting from all their great effort! One of the care home favourites Phoebe Appleby was welcomed back and gave us a wonderful performance of songs that lifted everyone’s spirits whilst we enjoye...d a good sing a long.
Building up to the horse racing festival in Cheltenham we were not going to miss out on the opportunity to have some horse racing fun of our own. The students visited from Cheltenham college. Playing our own unique game of horse racing, residents were soon shouting (rivalling the famous ‘Cheltenham Roar’)as they encouraged their horse to be the first past the winning post!
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Hello we have had a wonderful week here, intrigue, mystery and a little mayhem has been the order of the day at book club as we continuing are sleuthing hand in hand with the master detective Hercule Poirot, more clues have been added to our incident board but in truth we are still none the wiser.
Thankfully our tremendous music and movement session led by Rosie was far easier to follow, great fun and laughter was had as yours truly done his best to be the ‘laughing policem...an’ and then did our best to look elegant and demur as we wore bright colouring scarfs.
Eunice from Mojo art continued our journey through the arts as this month we explored the work of Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish designer and architect who was famous for his art nouveau designs. Great fun was had by all as we did are best to emulate his work.
Of course today is the 1st March and it has not gone unnoticed here that this is St David’s Day, Wales' national day. We will be have a gorgeous Welsh themed evening meal tonight all prepared and cooked by our fantastic chefs; the smell of freshly made Welsh cakes is already permeating the home and increasing our appetite! ‘Dydd happus davids’ every one!
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🔍Our resident detectives in book club this week are now hot on the trail of the prime suspects in the Mystery of the Three Quarters; we have set up crime scene notice board, key points and facts are being pinned up as we continue to learn more about this most puzzling mystery but rest assured folk nothing is going to slip past the sharp minds of our detective force. We will have our man (or woman) banged to rights by the end of the story!🔎
🥠In reminiscence club this week we h...ad fun chatting about Chinese new year. It brought much laughter and interest as we all found out what animal we were and what that meant. Suffice to say I turned out to be a RAM!🐏 Kung Hay Fat Choy to everyone!🎎
🏃‍♀️Tanya from G Fitness got all our residents smiling as she took them through a strength exercise programme specially designed to help keep our residents happy and healthy.
🎤The fantastically named Wolfrun Riverstick came and entertained us mid-week with a fantastic collection of songs. He lifted everyone, put smiles on faces and feet tapping in time to the music. All who attended gave much praise to how wonderful he had entertained us and I am pleased to say he has already been booked again! 🎶
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Welcome to what has been a lovely Valentine week here at our home. Monday began with bright smiles and romance as Rosie guided everyone through a fun and laughter filled afternoon which had people singing and dressing up that put smiles on everyone's faces.
Tuesdays art club was both lots of fun and very interesting as Eunice from Mojo Art talked about Wassily Kandinsky, a Russian painter credited as the pioneer of abstract art follow in his famous piece of ‘Colour Study, Squ...ares with concentric Circles 1913. Eunice guided everyone through their own creation of abstract art on the theme of hearts, at the end of which, Eunice skillfully brought all the individual pieces together to create our own colour study. The finished piece brought much joy and smiles to all who helped create it and is just as good as any Kandinsky! Well what do you folks think?
With Valentine’s day close at hand this week we also had a go at baking some heart shaped shortbread biscuits for our loved ones. Truth to tell however...fresh out of the oven and still warm, most of the biscuits didn’t last very long! We all agreed that they were scrummy-delicious and the best bit of cooking is definitely the eating afterwards!
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Welcome all to what has been an entertaining week! We had our sleuthing hats on (or should that be our detective moustaches) at the beginning of the week. The plot thickens, like Bisto gravy left out overnight, in our Hercule Poirot story ‘The Mystery of The Three Quarters’. Our crime scene notice board is starting to resemble a surrealist painting by Salvador Dali as we attempt to keep tabs on the main characters. None the less we are having great fun trying to keep one ste...p ahead of the famous detective.
Residents have also been trying to figure out a host of magic tricks that John has been learning and then entertaining residents with. (Getting just as many laughs from when tricks have gone wrong as applause when tricks have gone right!) Suffice to say at the moment there is greater chance of John joining Albert Square than there is of him entering the magic circle. One resident did remark that ‘she had never seen anything like it!’
However there was no magic involved in making the sweets disappear from the visit of the old fashioned sweet shop. Imperial mints, chocolate stars, sherbet lemons were just some of the favourites that quickly disappeared ending up in residents sweet bags.
The visit of Cheltenham college this week had students teaming up with residents fishing for plastic ducks (blind folded of course) to get points and prizes, along with a history quiz it merged the agility of youth with the knowledge of our residents, coming together to produce a fun time that had residents and students laughing in accord.
In amongst all this we must not forget the magic that happens every week on ‘Pamper Thursday’ when all residents have the opportunity to have manicures and pedicures and their hair done, hasten to add not all at the same time of course. A wonderful way to help our residents feel special...which of course they all are.
We enjoyed a Funtime Friday with the amazing Tanya from G Fitness keeping us all on our toes with a great workout.
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Monday was so bright and sunny, in fact it was dazzling, much like Rosie from musical moments who had residents laughing and singing along while doing their best impersonations of virtuoso ukulele players.There was not a hint of snow as warm smiles and bright spirits melted any inkling of winter chills. 😀
🎬Movie night took us away to warmer climes to the picturesque French riviera of the 1950’s no less as we watched ‘To Catch a Thief’ staring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly
We had... great fun with Cheltenham College students as we pitched a brain power against them in a series of quizzes and games, they only just won and all the residents are determined to do better next time.🧠
⛄️Thursday and thoughts turned to the snow and weather warnings for the local area, after some much deliberation and thought it was decided in the best interests of everyone to sadly cancel the trip to Slimbridge for today 1st February. Having looked out of the office today it has turned out to be a prudent decision, but rest assured as the better weather arrives so we will be getting out and about, in the mean time there is plenty of fun to be had here in the home!
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Welcome all to what has been an exciting week here at the home. It all began on Monday with the ‘ Mystery of Three Quarters’ the new Hercule Poirot story began at book club, we are noting down the suspects on our wipe board and attempting to out sleuth the master detective, which is leading to some great fun.🔍
⚽️Having worked out our brainpower, we switched to our muscle power on Tuesday with Tanya from G fitness. Tanya had residents in training for the new football and netba...ll season. Much laughter was shared by all.
The week finished on a very special note when the wonderful lady from ‘Walk with Hawks’ brought her wonderful selection of birds of pray for the residents to see. There was a chance for everyone to get up close and personal with these amazing creatures. 🦉
🇫🇮The evening finished off with the chance for all residents to take part in traditional burns night supper with Scottish music cheering the soul there was on offer three course meal of highland broth starter, followed by haggis with whisky cream sauce with creamed tatty and neeps and green beans and desert was Cranachan. A great way to finish the week!
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The third week of January got off to a wonderful start here at are home with the fantastic Rosie from Musical Moments bringing her fun and music to the home. Residents were singing along, clapping and having so much fun that they didn’t even realise what good exercise they were doing to help maintain their strength and balance; thank you Rosie!
On Tuesday the pace was more genteel as residents were treated to a beautiful violin concert brought to us by the very talented Cathe...rine not only did she entertain us with some brilliant and varied pieces of classical music she also took time to tell the story of her 250 year old German violin which was fascinating to hear about.
Wednesday was a very busy day, in our reminiscence club we talked about holidays in Scotland. Ann from our local church arrived and gave a lovely all faiths service on the theme of Epiphany, which was spiritually up lifting for all those who chose to attend
Wednesday also signalled the return of the students from Cheltenham college as new school term began we welcomed Marton, Bobby, Hugo and Fin to our home and a lovely time was spent chatting and getting to know each other. We look forward to enjoying their company in the weeks ahead.
Of course there is always something to look forward to here at Charlton Kings Care home, and next week is no exception as we have a fantastic visit from the ‘Walk with Hawks’ people and their wonderful birds of prey and linking in with our reminiscence club conversation next week we will also be hosting a burns night dinner so ‘Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face, Great Chieftan o’ the Puddin Race!
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Of course you can never have too much of a good thing, so when the old fashioned sweet shop visited on Monday afternoon, there were plenty of smiling faces to welcome it here at the home.
Thankfully the lovely Tanya from ‘G Fitness’ visited on Tuesday afternoon to help work off some of the calories some people might have acquired from the sweet shop visit.
If laughter burnt calories then everyone had a fantastic work out Wednesday afternoon when the amazing Paul and his puppe...t friends had everyone laughing and singing for over an hour, it was non stop fun all the way! There is plenty to look forward to. Our first outing of the year is on Friday February the 1st we will be taking a mini bus from the home, leaving at 10:00 for a visit to WWT Slimbridge for a fantastic day out. We will be having dinner there and returning at 2:00. It would be fantastic to see you there! Please join us! Let us know if you would like to meet your relative there, it will be a grand day out!
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