Strachan House Care Home in Blackhall have recently hosted an intergenerational playgroup for residents and members of the local community.
The home on Craigcrook Road recently welcomed the group from the local Cargilifield Nursery to enjoy some storytelling magic with the residents at the home.
The group of children and colleagues enjoyed a book reading of the Judith Kerr classic ‘The Tiger Who Came for Tea’ and the more recent story ‘Little Goose’s autumn’ before enjoying a series of games with our residents.
General Manager, Fran Fisher of Strachan House Care Home said: “We invited the group to the home as a way of promoting intergenerational links between our seniors and the children.
“The home had a lot of fun on the day, and they loved seeing our young visitors. If anyone ever wants to stop in for a lovely afternoon with your young ones, or just for a cuppa and a break, we’d love to have you join us.”
Strachan House Care Home is run by Barchester Healthcare, one of the UK’s largest care providers, which is committed to delivering personalised care across its care homes and hospitals.
Strachan House provides residential care, nursing care and dementia care for 83 residents from respite care to long term stays.
Brand new campaign from Soil Association Food for Life
A brand new campaign from the Soil Association aims to tackle food insecurity and loneliness, starting this World Food Day on 16th October.
Anyone can take part in Cook and Share Month and hundreds of events are expected to take place across the UK. From Edinburgh to Inverclyde, people will be cooking and, you guessed it, sharing food in their local communities between 16th October and 16th November 2021.
Preparing and eating food is a great way to bring down barriers, so the organisers are encouraging people from all walks of life to take part.
Community groups, schools, children’s centres, faith groups and more will be getting busy in the kitchen and making food to share with each other, and with their local area, both remotely and in person where it’s safe to do so.
Need funding? Grants of £150 are available to help people get their cooking events off the ground, provided by Food for Life Get Togethers (FFLGT), a Soil Association programme funded by the National Lottery.
More details are below.
So why should we share our food?
Research has revealed that the more often people eat with others the more likely they are to feel happy and satisfied with their lives. Yet this year we have seen loneliness rise, exacerbating social problems that were already there.
The Office of National Statistics has published a report saying that loneliness in adults has increased during the pandemic by almost a third. From October 2020 to February 2021, results from the Opinions and Lifestyle Survey (OPN) showed that 7.2% of the adult population (about 3.7 million adults) felt lonely ‘often’ or ‘always’. This is an increase of 1.1 million people since the first UK lockdown in 2020.
Many people have become more isolated as a result of social distancing measures, which can have negative effects on mental and physical wellbeing. Holding a Food for Life ‘Get Together’ is a tried and tested way for people to connect with others in their local communities, through good food, safely.
In a recent survey of Get Together organisers, nearly 90% either agreed or strongly agreed that their activities created new friendships or developed friendships. More than 90% of Get Together organisers also agreed or strongly agreed that these activities supported people’s health and wellbeing.
Helen Browning, CEO of the Soil Association says:“The month is about using the power of great food to bring us together. At the Soil Association, we know that food has got to be good for us, and good for nature and the climate too.
“It has never been more important to create meaningful connections. We have seen over the past year that feeling connected to others is absolutely essential to good health and wellbeing. Food is one of our best ways to unite across barriers – whether that’s the garden fence, cultural or generational divides.”
Dale Cranshaw, Head of Food for Life Get Togethers adds: “Half of the UK population feel that Britain is more divided than ever before. To build stronger communities that can stand up to some of the urgent health, climate and nature crises of our time we need to get together.
“Cooking and sharing food is one of the best tools you have to bring people from different backgrounds or generations together. If you want to bring your community together you can do something about it this month by cooking, and sharing food that’s good for people and planet with your community.”
There are a range of resources available, helping organisers to cook easy, healthy recipes from scratch. Choose your favourite, from an Eritrean Daal to a simple, home-made bread roll.
An important part of Cook and Share month is helping people to cook from scratch, which has health benefits and often has a lower carbon footprint than alternative ultra-processed foods.
After a year of isolation and worry, it is more important than ever that we connect with the people around us. Whether you’re dishing up daal, sharing a sarnie or passing round the pasta, food is a great way to break down barriers and bring people together.
It’s turning cold! Time to find a warm building, and cook lots of tasty food! You’re all invited to:
GRANTON COMMUNITY GARDENERS HARVEST MEAL 2017
TUESDAY, 21st November. Food served 5-7pm.
At Granton Parish Church (55 Boswall Parkway) -entrance on the corner of Wardieburn Street East.
FREE
ALL AGES WELCOME! (kids need to come with a responsible adult)
If you’d like to help out in any way, we need some people to help decorate, cook, serve food, or wash up. Please reply to this email or speak to Jayne or Tom if you’d like to volunteer!
You’re welcome to bring neighbours, friends and family.. (if you can RSVP it’s helpful to get an idea of numbers, but you can just show up!)
Big thank you to Granton Parish Church for letting us use their kitchen and hall!
This will be the first of a regular series of meals, every Tuesday (early evening) between now and 12th December. We have some funding from the Scottish Government to support this, so will be hosting as many meals as we can over the Winter.
We’re very glad to have a vegetarian chef working with us, Jayne, who also works as a cookery teacher, so she’ll be keeping us right and in charge of food! If anyone would like to help cook, it could be a good opportunity to share and learn some skills..
In other news:
Regular gardening drop ins are continuing, twice a week when the weather is ok. Meet 11am Tuesday or Saturday, at the garden on the corner of Boswall Parkway and Wardieburn Road. Yesterday we were planting garlic..
Bread club has been really popular, and is now happening roughly once a month. If you’d like to learn to bake or practice your skills, or would like to be contacted when we next have some of our own bread to sell, please get in touch! We’re about to mill our wheat from this year’s harvest, so we’ll have some more of our own flour to bake with.
We should hopefully have some new exciting updates to share fairly soon, watch this space!
Granton Community Gardeners to share their bumper harvest
Weather’s turning wintry, time to gather inside and have some hot food!
YOU’RE ALL INVITED!
Friday 20 November, 6pm Royston Wardieburn Community Centre
No need to bring anything, but message us if you’d like to help organise, set up or bring food. (and RSVPs are helpful for numbers)
Granton Community Gardeners committee member Tom Kirby reports:
Most things have grown really well in the gardens this year, and there’s been a great regular team of local residents, we’ve all learned a lot from each other! We still meet up every Tuesday and Saturday at 11am (unless weather is really bad!) at the community garden on the corner of Boswall Parkway and Wardieburn Road. Anyone is very welcome to join us, no prior gardening experience needed!
This Saturday (weather permitting) we’ll be sowing the first of our trial plots of winter wheat! We are participating in a project organised by Bread Matters, to try growing small scale plots of varieties of wheat that used to be grown in Scotland before cereal production became so industrialised (and before issues like gluten intolerances were such a problem).
We’re already making plans for next year, but it’s good to take some time to relax and celebrate what’s been achieved.
