Around the World

From the 20th to the 22nd of June we took the theme  'Around the World' which gave us a focus for activities over a three day period.. On Friday morning we discussed travel and holidays, sharing photographs of trips abroad, and started putting together a record of our voyages:

The red dots represent visits or holidays, the green ones where people have lived and worked.  Over the course of the weekend, more and more dots were added.

We concentrated on 'The Americas' on Friday; a Mexican Wave in the morning, a 'Boston' Tea party in the afternoon, and the Napa (valley) challenge in the evening!   We sampled a Napa Valley Colombard Chardonnay, and some 'California rolls' sushi.

On Saturday morning we tried a 'Parisian' breakfast; croissants, pain chocolat and coffee... On Saturday afternoon we made a pizza, and Italian food was on the menu in the evening.  Sunday lunch was preceded by (Russian) blinis. Residents enjoyed sampling a variety of foods, and a return visit to France was suggested, for a cheese and wine evening.

Open Day

On Friday 20th we took part in National Care Home Open Day. We are proud of our links with the local community, and we welcomed a group of children from John Gibbard School. (The school is named after a previous owner of the Sharnbrook House, who had the school built in 1870.) 

The children investigated the grounds, discovering our orchard and vegetable gardens, and they saw ducklings, moorhens and our resident swan and heron on the lake.

As part of Care Homes Open Day, residents took part in a nationwide 'Mexican wave'. We used our 'parachute', and managed to get quite a ripple going!

In the afternoon we invited people in for afternoon tea, and a splendid selection of cakes from the kitchen were much appreciated by all the guests:

The Winning Post

Ascot Gold Cup Day

We spent a very pleasant afternnoon watching Royal Ascot.  For the first four races, we had a sweepstake, picking horses' names at random. Tea was served just before the feature race, with a selection of cakes and biscuits, and the obligatory bucks' fizz. The winning 'owners' in the first three races won boxes of chocolates, and the winner of the Gold Cup was presented with some flowers.

Fascinators at the ready...

Looking forward to the Gold Cup...

We have a busy weekend coming up, with National Care Homes Open Day, and the Napa Challenge, but we're also going to find time to absorb a bit of the atmosphere of Royal Ascot.  On Thursday we shall be having a sweepstake party for Gold Cup day, with drinks and other treats, and who knows? Maybe even some prizes!

Land Girls' Tug of War

There aren't many photos of the house in its Land Army days, but one that does survive is of a tug of war. The staff decided to re-create it, and the residents formed a spectators gallery on the terrace, making helpful comments like
 'Can I have a cup of tea now?' and 'Is this supposed to be entertainment?'

 

 Put your backs into it girls!

 On the second leg, some rather underhand tactics by the opposition left the victors sprawling on the ground.

Although the more well-known land girl uniform was the one with corduroy breeches seen in the recruitment posters, the girls at Sharnbrook wore dungarees.

 

 

Our land girl taking a break from digging for victory.

Austerity Baking!

Nutrition or ammunition?

One of our residents was in the Naafi during the war, and recalls being on the south coast in the days before D-day keeping the troops fed. Her speciality was rock buns, so we had a go.......

 

In fact, warm from the oven, they were delicious!

The kitchen rose to the challenge too, rustling up Woolton Pie, and bread pudding.  Woolton Pie was a recipe promoting vegetables as a main course, and was named after Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food.

70 years on

D-day Commemorations

This week we looked at life in the house, and residents' experiences of life seventy years ago. We have tried some wartime recipes, and put together a collage based on the land army, and rationing.

In the course of the week we have also had a series of oral history sessions. As was to be expected, there were some extraordinary stories, from some extraordinary people. We have a wide range of ages within the house, so some residents were already at work in 1944, while others were still children.

One lady, who was living and working in Kensington, recalls being blown out of bed by a bomb blast during the blitz.  Another resident, although still at Cambridge, was part of a team of university volunteers, and a first aider, helping in the aftermath of bombing raids in London. We also have somone who served in the WRNS, whose German language skills saw her recruited for 'special duties' at Y stations, intercepting radio messages.  She refuses to see this as anything out of the ordinary, 'There were hundreds of us, I don't think you can make too much of it.'  Yet another resident was  in the  WRAC and spent the war in Egypt.  Although their stories are the stuff of history to us, to them it was just life; 'you just got on with it'.

Others managed to have an idyllic country childhood, living far from the bombs and rationing.  One lady remembers her Auntie Annie's farm, riding the gentle carthorse, and collecting eggs from the chickens. 'We never went short.' she said, 'But when we killed the pig, we had to give some of that up. That was only fair.'
Others remember being evacuees, some hated it, while others had a whale of a time: 'The family had a car. That was unheard of. We used to go on trips at the weekend,' recalled one lady, 'though goodness knows how they managed it, what with petrol rationing and everything'

June - Summer in the garden

Gardening club

Recently we visited the garden centre to re-stock the raised troughs on the terrace. Since then we have been waiting for some good weather to begin planting. Monday the 2nd dawned bright and fair, and so the gardeners amongst us started work.

 

Geraniums are always popular, their bright colour makes an instant impact.