We celebrated 30 years of Restcare with a hog roast at Over Stowey Village Hall, it was a lovely evening and nice to be able to mark the occasion with staff, volunteers and those who have contributed in various ways to The Vicarage over the years and say thank you.

July has been another warm and dry month with some lovely activities to entertain everyone.

Chris came in and played the organ, which everyone said was a lovely selection of tunes. We also welcomed back Hazel; our harpist for the first time this year. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite warm enough to have the performance outside, but everyone very much enjoyed it, and a few had a go on the harp strings when Hazel had finished her session.

Steve Holford came and sung the afternoon away with his selection of songs mostly from a bygone age, we all enjoyed them.

We welcomed back the Ukulele Group from Stogursey. It was lovely to sit outside, and we really enjoyed the fun upbeat tunes they gave us. They were able to join us for tea in the garden, and we look forward to welcoming them back again in the future.

One of our volunteers; Suzanne has been coming in to play scrabble, we now often have two games of scrabble happening simultaneously, as more people have come into play. Thank you to Suzanne and all our volunteers who bring some wonderful variety to the home.

As mentioned last month, we had William, a student from from Haygrove on work experience, he was a great asset and everybody enjoyed his interaction. We introduced him to his first game of scrabble. He enjoyed all the games we played, and he knew most of the songs we sang along to. At the end of his stay, he played some lovely classical music on the organ.

Del; our maintenance manager reworked our old wooden planter containers which had started rotting and made one big one, the residents decided that we should have our own herb/sensory patch. The cooks can then use the herbs in the kitchen and residents can run their fingers over the plants and experience the wonderful aromas. Some residents enjoyed a trip to the garden centre, and we had a fun time walking amongst the plants and selecting what we wanted. We had a light lunch in the newly constructed garden room of the restaurant, it was very relaxing and everyone enjoyed it. All there is to do now is plant our herbs and watch them grow and sew a few more annual herbs and edible flowers in the tub next year.

Some residents went out on a warm but blustery day to Watchet, we sat and had some ice cream and certainly blew the cobwebs away.

In art and craft another volunteer, Jenny came in and we made large Willow Flowers, it was hard for residents to work the willow, but they were able to weave the raffia and construct an individual flower in pairs, they are already up and look great against the shed.

Philip Edwards gave us a fascinating slide show on birds of Antarctica, so many lovely penguins and albatross species and the ice and icebergs were breathtaking.