Halloween celebrations at Belleville Lodge

Halloween week was very busy for residents at Mansfield Care Homes, and Matron Margaret reports on an especially spooky time at Belleville Lodge in Edinburgh.

“On Wednesday, we  had an afternoon of pumpkin carving, which everyone enjoyed. The residents discussed how popular Halloween was in America, and how they used to carve Scottish turnips in their day, which were much harder to cut. They also remembered taking turnip lanterns round neighbours’ houses, and the Scottish custom of guising.”

“On Friday, we had a themed afternoon tea with Halloween biscuits baked by Peter, the chef, and found out interesting facts about Halloween and how it was started by the Scots and Irish to mark the end of the harvest and ward off evil spirits and ghosts.”

Matron also got into the spooky spirit by dressing up as a witch on Saturday. “The residents had great fun with the game of Scary Bag, which they dipped their hands into and which was filled with eyeball sweeties, spiders and a furry object that could have been a dead rat. Then we recovered with a game of dooking for apples with a fork, and a Halloween sing song.”

Many thanks to the staff and residents at Belleville Lodge for the lovely photos.