YOUR VERY GOOD LIFE
Whether it’s meeting up with friends in our Shambles Bar, watching a film or reading a book in The Riding Lights Library and Cinema Room, pursuing hobbies or playing a game of cards in the Barbican Arts and Crafts Room or treating yourself to a new hairdo, manicure or beauty treatment in our Vintage Salon
By getting to know each individual Resident, our carers are able to encourage everyone to take an active part in the life of the home. Simple pleasures are hugely important: the morning walk, feeding the birds, a little light weeding, baking cakes for one of our fundraising tea parties, laying the dining table, arranging flowers or distributing the post each day. But we also know and respect that our Residents value having some time alone too and we want these moments to be as joyful as any other.
FOOD AND DINING EXPERIENCE
With an enviable choice of dining venues including our beautifully furnished dining rooms, terraces, cafés and the courtyard garden, Residents can experience an intimate dining experience with family or close friends, a more social experience in our main dining rooms, the privacy of dining in their own bedroom including the ever popular treat of breakfast in bed or alfresco dining on a sunny day.
Our hospitality team prides itself on making mealtimes a special, stimulating part of each day. In our care homes, meals are as much about providing nutritious, tasty food as they are about enjoying a social occasion.
Residents are served three meals a day, as well as a mid-morning snack and afternoon tea. We use fresh ingredients, locally sourced wherever possible, with the emphasis on providing delicious seasonal meals. We understand the nutritional needs of older people and create meals that offer the correct calorific and nutritional content. We consider meals to be a fundamental part of every Resident’s care plan.
Eating is a social and an emotional experience, and our dining rooms are designed to create a relaxed and happy atmosphere, with menus that offer plenty of variety. We make a point of celebrating birthdays and special occasions, as well as national festivities such as St Andrew’s Day, Mother’s Day and Burns Night. We have built-in music systems to provide ambience and we dress our dining rooms in the evening.
We cater for special diets, but we’re also constantly looking for ways to make food and the dining experience as exciting as possible. There are more than 700 recipes in the HC-One cookbook and we’re updating this all the time. Our Taste and Try sessions are very popular with our Residents and they’ll often ask us to recreate a favourite classic dish. This can trigger a lively conversation and all kinds of memories, discussions and laughter.