Author: Chris Tarry

The lovely residents of Balmore House have been quite excited leading up to Halloween. They love all things spooky and ghoulish and have been really busy this last week helping to create decorations for the home. Top of the fun list has been Pumpkin carving.

Lots of hard work and some great results – can’t wait for this evening to see them all lit up with lights inside.

With the nation once more enthralled by the latest Great British Bakeoff contest, our lovely residents at Orchard House decided they would do some baking of their own. They really enjoyed getting messy and mixing all the ingredients together.

As the pictures show it was great fun for everyone and the results tasted yummy!

Here at Orchard House we recently celebrated the retirement of one of our longest serving members of staff. He had been with us in various roles, including maintenance man and gardener for 28 years! That is quite an achievement! He has been a great asset to the homes in Ruddington and we were only too happy to give him the send off he deserved.

We were also delighted to receive these comments from his family…..

“My family and I would like to take this opportunity to thank all staff in Orchard House, St. Peter’s and Balmore for arranging a big surprise retirement party for Malcolm, especially to Jan-Marie Attenborough and the team at Orchard. We were overwhelmed to see the amount of people who attended to show their respect and love for Malcolm. He has been in the company for 28 years and his service has been exceptional, a great asset. Now that he is retiring from work, we are sure you will all miss him.”

We certainly will miss him and would like to thank him publicly here for all he has done for us over the years. We hope he really enjoys his retirement…and if he ever gets bored I’m sure we could find the odd thing or two that needs doing! Thank you Malcolm, for all your years of hard work.

We hold a wonderful coffee morning at the Ruddington Retirement Apartments every Thursday at 10:30am. It is a great opportunity for you to meet new people and to understand and see what we are doing to support people in their later years.

Everyone is welcome to come down and enjoy a slice of cake, a cuppa and a chat as well as experiencing our fun and friendly atmosphere that we always aim to provide.

We look forward to seeing you!

With the finalists for the first ever RUDD Awards being announced it’s great to see that we have so many wonderful individuals. companies and organisations, that together make Ruddington a great place to work and live. As a company with a long standing association with the village through our three care homes, and now our Ruddington Retirement Apartments, we are very proud to be sponsoring the Community Group Award.

Good luck to the judges trying to choose between the outstanding contributions each of the finalists make to our community.

On Monday our lovely residents at St. Peter’s spent the whole day watching the Queen’s State Funeral. There were a lot of tears shed but everyone said they felt privileged to be able to watch the service.

To cheer ourselves up we finished our day with an Afternoon Tea. We all said our goodbyes in our own way and although the day was sad, the service and pageantry were a fitting farewell to a great Queen.

The funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II takes place today at Westminster Abbey at 11am. For many this will see the end of an era that has marked their lives in so many ways. For over 70 years Her Majesty had been constant in our lives, a calm and reassuring presence on the throne. As we look forward to the reign of King Charles III, today is when we all get to say our last goodbye to someone who served our country so well.

For many of our residents today will be a sad day. We will be supporting them through this emotional time and will be making sure that everyone who wants to watch the funeral will be able to. We will all be paying our respects this morning at 11am and will bring you some pictures of how our residents marked the occasion in due course.

We hope you are able to pay your respects in the way that you choose and that you can find comfort in the service from the Abbey.

At St Peter’s our lovely residents have been greatly saddened by the death of Her Majesty The Queen. Here’s what three of them said in their own words:

Edna

Yesterday was a very sad day and I’m still finding today very difficult coming to terms with the loss of the Queen. She was crowned the Queen when she was only 25 years old and has served our country well, she was a great leader always and it was a privilege to have her head of our country, our nation.

Glenys

I am very sad to hear the sad news of the Queens passing, she was a lovely, elegant, lady who served our country well and my thoughts go out to all the Royal Family at this very sad time.

“I can remember the day very well – the day king George VI died and Elizabeth became Queen Elizabeth. I was 19 years old at the time in 1952. I got up that morning and I had planned to go into the town to do a bit of shopping. I was getting myself ready I chose to wear a black hat, black trousers and top and a purple jacket. Whilst I was getting ready there was a knock on the door when I answered the door it was a gentleman that had come to collect money that we paid for the insurance, and he said to me ‘I can see you’re dressed for the occasion’ I asked what occasion is that? In which he replied ‘King George VI had died’ I was very shocked and saddened to hear the news and when I went into the town everywhere was very quiet and sombre.

Pauline

I put on the television yesterday evening and was very sad to hear the news that our Queen had passed away – such a beautiful lady that has served us so well.

I remember Elizabeth marrying her husband in 1947. I had just met my husband at a similar time. Our Queen was a pleasure to have lead our country. A beautiful lady that I have always been proud to call our Queen. The royals must be finding things very hard, but they are a strong family who will pull together and King Charles III will make his mother proud, and he will continue to serve our country. My love really does go out to the royal family at this difficult time.

As you can see, lots of our residents are upset at the Queen’s passing and we will be doing our best to help them through this period, particularly on the day of the funeral.

We love springing surprises at Orchard House, particularly on our staff members who do such a great job looking after everyone. This time it was the turn of our beloved administrator Alicia, who we surprised for her 60th Birthday.

Alicia has been working at Orchard House for 14 years, during which time she has always been dedicated and professional. We loved getting the party ready for her and we are sure she had a great time.

Happy Birthday Alicia!

Ruddington Retirement Village is holding its Family Fun Day at Balmore House on Saturday 27th August from 2pm to 5pm. Not only will this be a fun day but it will be the perfect opportunity for people to see round our independent living apartments that have recently been completed. Our manager will be giving guided tours of these lovely apartments and facilities.

There will also be live entertainment, stalls, food and drink, a bouncy castle and much more. Everyone is invited and we would love to see as many families as possible from Balmore, Orchard House and St Peter’s.

Everyone is welcome to come and enjoy our special day.