A Valentine’s Day full of love, laughter and happy memories

Residents spent Valentine’s Day reminiscing over their wedding days, feasting on cakes and sharing ‘getting to know you’ dates.

We used the official day of love to celebrate friendships old and new.

Our Companionship Team member Corinne Wareham said: “We have some new residents at Amberwood House and we decided to create a lovely atmosphere for making friends, with our lounge and dining room decorated in pink, red and white and our tables festooned with confetti, roses and little chocolates.

“Our Companion Rebecca Osborne provided a beautiful start to the day by singing famous love songs.

“Then, at lunchtime, each resident picked a name out of a hat to determine who they would sit next to, to open up new conversations.

“And in a ‘Guess the Valentine’ game, we looked at a ‘tree of love’ featuring original wedding photos of 14 residents and tried to guess who was who.

“Quite a few of the men proved easier to identify than the ladies. But in the end, we worked together to correctly match everyone to their wedding day photos.”

In the afternoon, residents had a great deal of fun with the activity ‘Take a staff member on a date’, where they chose staff members with whom to share a 15-minute ‘date’ to get to know more about them.

Corinne said: “It really was a great chance to get to know each other better.

“Sarah, one of our carers, learned a great deal about Judy’s first date with her husband back in the 1950s while our waitress Kate learned from Ray that he had been married to his lovely wife for over 60 years.”

A sumptuous, Valentine-inspired afternoon tea was enjoyed at 3pm and afterwards Corinne read some famous love letters from people such as George W Bush, Henry VII and Vita Sackville-West, which provoked conversations about important letters residents had received over the years.

She said: “Many of these letters had been received from family members when they had lived overseas during the war and had been kept safely for years as precious mementos.

“It was a lovely day spent encouraging new friendships and remembering good times.”