RESIDENTS of a dementia care home in Wellington were delighted when a recent shopping trip for a single loaf of bread turned into a full-scale weekly shop.

Jean Barnett and Margaret Flemming, both live at Camelot House and Lodge, and were accompanying home manager Zillah Oakes on what was intended to be a short outing.

The impromptu trip out to the shops for a loaf developed into a really worthwhile activity for Margaret and Jean who enjoyed themselves enormously.

Zillah Oakes explained: “We’d only gone into Lidl to buy some bread, but Jean and Margaret started browsing the shelves and commenting on goods they recognised from when they used to do their own shopping, and then all sorts of nostalgic memories surfaced.

“They had huge fun spotting packaging they recognised, like Oxo, which Margaret told me her family used to enjoy dipping slices of bread into.

“As time ticked by lots of recollections emerged: their families’ favourite foods, memories of regular items they used to buy, special ingredients required for children’s or husbands’ birthday meals.”

On the spur of the moment, the home manager decided to do a full shop with the ladies who were only too pleased to oblige, and with their enthusiastic encouragement, the yielded a trolley full of groceries to take back to the care home chefs.

“It took us a while to unpack it all when we got home too,” said Zillah. “They told me afterwards they’d had a really great afternoon.”

She added: “For the people we support at Camelot House and Lodge, who are all living with dementia, it is so important to maintain a sense of purpose and it helps when they can do some of the normal activities they’ve done all their lives, so we work hard to facilitate this whenever we can, both inside and outside the home.”