Our residents have been incredibly stoic through lockdown and though they have missed their families they have stayed positive. We have recently welcomed back families for socially distanced visits in the garden, but for much of lockdown, Astley Hall has been family.
Our team have supported residents, keeping them in touch with their families and listening to their concerns and anxieties. Our lifestyle and well-being coordinators created a full programme of events to keep morale high and boost positivity.
How we are keeping positive.
Themed events and activities
Who knew there was an International Cats Day! Any excuse for a party in the garden, a BBQ and the musical CATS.
We also marked Indian Independence Day, with a special presentation from two of our residents, who were born in India. We enjoyed an amazing lunch of authentic curries, prepared by our chef Li.
For Bastille Day, we had French inspired activities and best of all delicious patisseries for afternoon tea. Barry lead a French lesson. Some of our residents remembered their French verbs from lessons at school. We shared lots of happy memories of holidaying in France and French cuisine.
Community projects
It was during a conversation about heroes on VJ day, that we were inspired to create our entry for our sister home’s (The Lawns, Kempsey) Scarecrow Festival. It seemed apt that we themed our scarecrow as a nurse.
All our care team are heroes and with it also being the 150 year anniversary of the Red Cross, we made a Red Cross Nurse. May we introduce Nurse Blossom! We didn’t win the competition but had so much fun taking part.
Home is were the heart is
We have been looking at the history of Astley Hall. Interestingly, we learned that Sir Stanley Baldwin, who once lived at Astley, was a cousin of Rudyard Kipling. Our garden looks much the same, with its huge lawn area, although we now also have a sensory garden. The front turning circle has made way for the carpark, and the dining room is now a residents’ lounge.
Astley Hall is listed and has lots of original features including all the original panelling in our entrance hall, the ceiling mouldings and original staircase. Residents particularly love the enormous sash windows. Bright and breezy and making the most of the views to the church and Malvern Hills. Such a lovely place to live and work.
We have been making the most of our gardens, soaking up the sunshine and harvesting our veggies.
We also created a Forget-me-not café in a quieter corner of our home for beautiful afternoon teas, with music from The Rat Pack. Lovely to use our donated vintage crockery and enjoy cakes and pastries made by our chefs Li and Flori.
Friday fun
Nothing like a song and dance to put you in a positive frame of mind
To herald the start of the weekend, we have a Friday sing-along and there is undoubtedly dancing with some of our enthusiastic staff and residents. Some people are naturally drawn, it would seem, to a karaoke machine!
It also transpires that we have our own Three Tenors in Derek and the two Tony’s!
A positive mindset
We have begun a Namaste Care Programme with our residents as a holistic therapy which we tailor to each resident. For our nursing and residential residents it is more of a spa day, whereas for our dementia residents it can help ease stress and anxiety and for our end of life residents it can help with pain management. The principles are the same of caring for the whole person; emotionally and physically, with gentle calming music, sensory aromatherapy and sensory therapy with gentle hand and foot massages.
We have also introduced for our gents a traditional hot shave every Friday afternoon. We use hot towels, a badger brush and good old fashioned shaving soap – none of that foamy stuff! Nothing like a spruce up and a bit of TLC.
