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Wardside House Gazette October 2020

November 2020

Birthdays: Congratulations and many happy returns of the day were wished to Jean Wharton and Elizabeth Smith who both celebrated their birthday on 15^th October.

Birthday wishes were also sent to Ron Caves who celebrated his on 22^nd October with a visit from his family. We hope you all enjoyed your special day.

New Residents: Wardside welcome Mr Stewart Morris from Muthill, originally from Thurso. We hope Stewart you are settling in well.

Staff News: We welcome two new care assistants, Lucy Haldane and Jessica Henderson to our team and also have a new cleaner, Irena Szulc. We hope you all enjoy your new roles within Wardside and get to know us all soon.

Death: We are deeply saddened to report the death of Mrs Isobel Ritchie who peacefully passed away on 11^th October. Mrs Ritchie had been a resident here at Wardside for 4½ years. We send our sincere condolences to her family.

Activities: Socially distanced activities are still ongoing with Mairi in the big lounge. A staff member will let you know on the day these are taking place and you can decide if you would like to attend. The activities vary each week and are a range of different topics to interest all residents. Mairi will host a quiz usually on a Wednesday night, should this change she will let us know. For those who don’twish totake part in the group activities just yet, we are still offering the usual activities that comply with social distancing.

Huge thanks are sent to Gail Speedie for organizing and hosting a socially distanced Halloween party for us in the big lounge/garden room. Thank you to the carers that were on shift that helped Gail put on a great party, we really appreciate all the hard work.

Here are some interesting facts on where Halloween traditions came from.

The practice of decorating jack-o’-lanterns originated in Ireland, where large turnips and potatoes served as early canvasses. In fact, the name, jack-o’-lantern, comes from an Irish folktale about a man named Stingy Jack. In the past, communities would light huge bonfires to keep evil spirits at bay. In true Scottish tradition, scary faces were carved into neeps (turnips) to create lanterns that would scare off ghouls wandering in the witching house. Thanks to America’s influence, pumpkins are now as common as turnips for lanterns in Scotland – and are considerably easier to carve.

The tradition of dooking for apples dates back to the Roman invasion of Britain, when the conquering army merged their own celebrations with traditional Celtic festivals. The Romans brought with them the apple tree, a representation of the goddess of plenty, Pomona. During an annual celebration, young unmarried people try to bite into an apple floating in water or hanging from a string on a line, rather than in a bowl of water;^[3] the first person to bite into the apple would be the next one to be allowed to marry.