Summer is always exciting here at Country Lodge Nursing Home in Worthing. Thanks to our fantastic gardener, we have a vibrant garden that is always full of wonderful smells and various flowers, creating the perfect space to enjoy the summer weather. Plus we are lucky enough to back onto the South Downs National Park, which gives us incredible views to marvel at while soaking up the sun.
Of course, like the rest of the year, our events and activities calendar throughout the summer months is full of fun events for our residents and their relatives and friends. In this article, we take some time to share what we have planned for the coming months.
Sunflower Competition
Back at the end of April, the residents and staff planted some sunflowers for our annual sunflower competition.
We love getting the residents to compete against the staff to produce the tallest sunflower in our garden.
Each of the residents and staff members is keeping a close eye on the progress and later on in the season, we will all gather around to declare a winner.
Follow our Facebook page to follow the sunflower’s journey and find out who wins.
USA Independence Day
We may not be American, but we love a reason to celebrate anything, so on the 4th of July we get together, to celebrate all things American. This will include typically American food and activities.
Garden Party
On the 8th of July, we will be hosting our annual garden party for residents and their families. This is a great event for us to welcome friends and family of our residents to our home and garden and share the enjoyment of the summer with everyone.
We set up several large tables out in the garden along with a BBQ and buffet for everyone to tuck into as the afternoon goes on. The afternoon also includes entertainment and this year we are excited to welcome Corrine, a singer who we are expecting will get everyone dancing – after all the staff and residents do like a good jig.
French Day
On the 14th of July, we celebrate Bastille Day. This is an excuse for us to dress up in French attire and enjoy French food while participating in a few French activities that differ from the norm.
Wimbledon Weekend
A summer tradition at our nursing home in Worthing is to join the country in watching and celebrating the Wimbledon finals. Over the 15th and 16th of July, we will have the tennis finals on in our lounge for those who want to watch them and will be serving strawberries and cream in true Wimbledon style.
Cat Day
We love animals here, so on the 8th of August we will be celebrating our cat friends.
Find out what we get up to on this day by following us on Facebook.
Dolly the Pony Visit
Every so often we all enjoy a special visit by a trained pony.
A visit from Dolly gives residents the opportunity to be present for a short period of time while attending to the horse, taking pictures, or simply speaking with the handlers. We often find that this small encounter lifts their spirits.
Those who interact with the horse benefit from the stimulation of their senses and tactile responses and the presence can elicit motor, sensory, and emotional reactions.
Garden Boules Club
The summer sun also brings with it a few seasonal activities as we make the most of being able to be outside.
We run a weekly boules club in the garden for the residents who want to participate. This is an easy activity for most of our residents as our pathways around the garden allow residents easy access to the garden in their chairs.
Exercise Club
We like to keep our residents active, so every Monday and Friday we run an exercise club in the lounge. A few firm favourites are a bit of Tai Chi and chair exercises to start off their days.
Our Activities Ambassador runs these sessions and our residents are encouraged to participate to a level that they are comfortable with. The session is always full of laughter and we love seeing the resident’s smiles at the end of the club.
Therapy Dog Visit
Every Monday we have a therapy dog visit us. The ball of fluff is adored by everyone and always gets a bit of attention from each of the residents and staff.
After exercise club, a therapy dog visit is just what everyone needs to calm down. You will often find the dog with its head in the resident’s lap enjoying a stroke or two.
Book Club
We have a few avid readers among our residents, which encouraged us to set up a book club.
Those who want to can join our weekly meeting to discuss their readings of the week. This is a great way to keep our resident’s brains stimulated and they often evoke some very interesting conversations.
Art Club
Residents also enjoy putting their creative caps on for our art club.
This was set up last year after a resident requested it at one of our monthly resident meetings. Since its inception (which you can read about in another of our articles) our Activities Ambassador has been hosting the club monthly.
Residents get together in our dining room and paint, use watercolours or colour in for a few hours in the day. During the summer, when the weather is nice we are lucky enough to get the sun streaming in through our back doors, which we open up from time to time to let the warmth in.
Prize Bingo
Bingo happens weekly with our residents, who like to get a bit competitive with each other to win the prizes on offer that day. It always fills the home with laughter and smiles as the residents work their way through their bingo cards stamping the numbers that are called with their pens.
Regular Appearances By
We have a number of entertainers that come in and perform for our residents regularly and over the summer these don’t stop.
Our residents love to dance along to Jay Sings Swing’s monthly performance. We also have a good ol’ singalong with Tim West and Delores, our Activities Ambassador, fortnightly.
Lucy Goldberg graces us with her incredible piano skills each month, and we are always happy to welcome Alex Eberhard to play the guitar for our residents bi-monthly.
Welcoming this summer
This summer we are excited to welcome a few new performances to our Worthing nursing home. These widen the variety of entertainment seen here as we introduce the residents to Magician Nolan Davies and comedian Adrian Dougherty.
We will also have alpacas visiting the home as well as dancing dogs which are sure to be very entertaining.
Weekly Activities
Among the incredible events, performances and special activities, we also run our weekly calendar of activities. This includes word searches, memory games, jigsaws, arts and crafts, random letters games, board games, quizzes and poetry readings.
Impressed by our activities calendar?
At Country Lodge Nursing Home in Worthing, we always have a range of activities for our residents. We will use any excuse for a celebration and something out of the norm.
If you would like to see more of what we get up to, then arrange a booking to view our home. Call our Registered Manager on 01903 830600, or email her on manager@countrylodgenursing.co.uk.
Head over to our Facebook page and follow us to keep up with what we are getting up to over the summer, as we love to put pictures up of our events.