I do apologise for the gap in our weekly blog last week. I think everyone was concentrating on the snow and unfortunately a lot of our activities were cancelled due to the weather. Robin was one person who was snowed in for a while... I must say it was lovely to have her back entertaining the residents again this week, with John also working on the maintenance for me! It’s great to have you back mum and dad!

Robin started this week with a review of the activities that we have at Valerie Manor. The meeting was enjoyed with all the residents and some relatives while having a cup of coffee and a lovely chocolate éclair! I’m pleased to say that it appeared that everyone is enjoying what we are currently doing and there were very minimal suggestions for change; We are going to get a ‘score board’ so that we can write things up and keep scores etc when the residents are taking part in games, my what a competitive group we have! There was also the suggestion of ‘story telling’ which I think is a fantastic idea which we will introduce soon.

Our care assistant Sheri will soon be driving the 'Jalopy' (mini bus) with her colleagues as she is now insured to take the residents out - which means there should be more trips as it won’t be reliant on me!

The menu review was held on Thursday with myself – I must say it was so nice to sit down with the residents and staff together for over an hour! The residents say I am always on the go and often tell me to ‘slow down’!

It was lovely to chat about the food the residents like and it was also good to have input from some relatives and staff. The relatives helped us with things that the residents used to like at home which was great! Again, I was pleased to hear that in general the residents are very happy with the food they have at Valerie Manor and there isn’t a lot that they want to change. Some of the food that they have suggested which we will add to the menus are sweet potatoes, broad beans, spotted dick and good old fashioned lamb stew with pearl barley (I still love it when my mum cooks that for me!).