Wellington Vale Care Home turns Blue Monday into carnival day

The day’s entertainment included a carnival style fancy dress parade with staff members and residents, and a performance and workshop from a steel pan musician.

Trolleys were transformed into a carnival float, elaborately decorated with flamingos, sombreros and palm trees. These were paraded on all three floors of the care home, accompanied by music, with staff members and residents dancing and blowing whistles.

Helen Cox, Home Admissions Advisors at Wellington Vale said: “When I heard that it was Blue Monday, I wanted to rebel against it! We ‘don’t do blue’ at Wellington Vale and we always go out of our way to have fun activities and to keep our residents entertained.

“January 20 turned out to be so much fun – our residents loved it. It was such a team effort; our Maintenance Team created our ‘trolley float’, our Activities Team and residents made decorations for the float, and our Catering Team made beautiful fruit platters.

"The steel pans were incredible, and our residents enjoyed listening to them and having a chance to play the drums too. We really did bring Mardi Gras to Waterlooville!”

Wellington Vale is active in the local community. Members of its Mother & Baby Group attended the carnival, along with family and friends of both staff and residents.

Wellington Vale is part of the Cinnamon Care Collection group of care homes. Carnival Day was such a success that it may be rolled out to other care homes in the group in future, and will almost certainly become an annual Blue Monday fixture at Wellington Vale.

Wellington Vale is an exclusive care home which offers exceptional residential, dementia and respite care and has 80 large, luxurious en-suite rooms. The care home has ratings of 10 out of 10 by carehome.co.uk, a national reviews website for care homes known as ‘the Trip Advisor of the care home sector’.

For the last seven years, the Cinnamon Care Collection has been named a Top 20 Care Home Group by carehome.co.uk.