Out and about and Care home update

Some late Sunday afternoon sandwiching happened and yes it was a bit cold but the job got done!

I have been plugging away at the Aussie hero quilt, more free range quilting to be done on the green grasses and the sea and water.

In the week we went over to Queenscliff, for a wander around and to find caches, there is one in a tree outside this house, one of the originals in Queenscliff, the owners were from Ireland.

On our way home we passed a paddock with a small herd of these Highland cattle

This young one (I presume ) or a teenager ? They do not grow that big.

Another Anthology block is completed, this one had 2 resews before it was the right size.

I had some very special happy mail in the week, Ingrid did some phone shopping at Lizzie's Quilt shop in Geelong and also bought some of the new batiks for me. Thank you Ingrid, I am very spoilt.

This afternoon the weather was quite good, the wind was a bit cold, so we went for a walk along another section of the rail trail, we found 3 out of 5 caches, two were no where to be found, or my caching eyes were not working!

We came across this train station, Suma Park used to be a horse stud, now the old house has been turned into a weddings,  functions and accommodation centre.

The train station is really well looked after and bonus I found the cache!! Yay!!

Feel free to skip the next bit.

Radius Matua Update: 20 May 2020

What a busy day we have had today, with a constant flow of family members visiting our Residents.

I was hoping that we might have had a reduction to level 1 in Jacinda’s announcement at 1.30pm, but it really just signalled that we might be a few weeks off yet. Her decision will likely affect any change in our precautionary approach to preventing Covid, and in turn the visitation restrictions.

We will await Monday with interest.

Some changes that we have put in place with the reducing to level 2 is:

·         Recommencement of visiting our resident’s

·         Van trips have re commenced

·         The mobile library will be back soon so Klara can commence obtaining books that are more specific to the resident’s taste.

·         We will start to plan the return of entertainers to our facility when we finally drop to level 1.

DHB and Aged Care:

I held an interesting Zoom meeting with the DHB yesterday to discuss the effect the Covid threat had had on Aged Care Facilities and how we had managed, how the DHB had supported us and any issues around the availability of PPE (Personal Protection Equipment). I was happy to say that so far with the help of staff, residents and families, and the timely support of the DHB we had not had any major issues (touch-wood).

It’s times like these when people work together, that shows that we can overcome some tough times. The one thing this horrible virus threat has taught us, is that you are not alone when you are part of a community both professionally and privately. People are inherently kind, willing and patient.

Activities Today:

·         Usual paper reading (cannot wait until other news is included other than Covid and the government’s quandaries)

·         Skittles : a smaller , less tiring game of ten pin bowling

·         Arts and craft club (preparing Crowns for upcoming royal morning tea for Queens birthday)

·         Video: Comedy in the hall (one foot in the grave ….requested by the residents)

·         Richard’s poems/stories

·         500 club

·         Baking scones

Did you know?

We have a resident in our rest home who was the first player to play 100 rugby union games for Manawatu? He was a nippy little (some may say yappy) halfback.

I was discussing it with him the other day and I asked him how many he actually played before retiring. He didn’t know, so together we googled it and found he played 101. He found it fascinating reading about himself, he also played against the French!! His son also played three games (at halfback) for Manawatu as well. He still sits at 10^th in the all-time list of games for Manawatu , what a legend!!

We have many residents with talents unknown in Matua and I will endeavour to share some of them with you in future newsletters.

I will be away for a couple of days so there will be no further newsletters this week. I will recommence on Monday.

Keep smiling everyone.

Craig Shipton

Radius Matua

Facility Manager

Off for a warming soak in the bath now awaiting fish and chips for dinner!
Happy stitching.