What an amazing start to summer we have had; we were able to enjoy lots of activities in the garden which is looking lovely. Thankfully we have lots of natural shade under the trees and also the parasols.

Residents enjoyed a wonderful performance from Ewan playing the classical piano, it made a lovely change from our regular music. Chris came in and played a good selection of tunes on the organ, we had fun guessing what some of the tunes were after only a couple of lines.

Jan took a lovely church service, and our resident organist accompanied the hymns on the organ. On another occasion Simon joined us with his guitar and performed his variety of country music outside under the shade of the parasols.

We had a beautiful sunny day when one of our volunteers Nick came in with his dog Laddie, he drove up in a fabulous vintage 1930s vehicle which many of the residents went out to have a look at, it was a great talking point. Hopefully he will bring a different car next month, as he has quite a few in his collection.

We had a lovely Art and Craft session under the trees in the garden, a volunteer called Margaret and another more frequent volunteer Jenny from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) came to the home and did an activity as part of some WWT organised events during the summer. They brought birds and butterflies for residents to colour in and then did a display of them on our windows. Later in the year they will go into a bigger display from all the events that the WWT have run, so it was lovely to be able to take part.

One of our residents joined our activities co-ordinator for the Combwich and Otterhampton Garden Club meeting for a talk on Alpines, which is of particular interest to him. He enjoyed the meeting and chatting to the speaker and other members and bought a couple of alpines to bring back to the home.

There was a residents meeting and we had our usual other activities. One of our volunteers came in and played scrabble which is always enjoyed. And also quizzes, bingo, exercise and games were held, with as many sessions as we could outside.

Stockland had their annual plant sale, and we had already potted up some plants for the sale, some tomatoes, pot marigolds, mints and beans. Several residents went to the sale, bought plants and had a cream tea, altogether £1000 was raised for St Margaret's hospice.