Today will be remembered for a long time as Lisa had to sadly announce to members that all dementia clubs after today’s session will be suspended until further notice. The World Health Organisation announced that the Corona virus Covid-19 had now been declared a pandemic which means that the world is in crisis. Members were very sad as they so look forward to attending the dementia clubs but they all fully understood the gravity of the situation and agreed that I was doing the right thing taking precautions.

Lisa also mentioned to members that whilst there will not be any dementia clubs, she wanted to let them know that they could call her any time if they had problems to discuss and also just for a chat.

The session then continued after this sad announcement and Lisa gave members another A to Z quiz to do. This time they had to find ‘countries of the world’. The aim of course is to try and find a country that has not been named by the other groups. This proved to be very competitive but also very enjoyable. Some members also did some word searches which they also enjoyed.

We then celebrated 2 birthdays. Maria’s 95th birthday which was on the 6th and Terry’s 85th birthday which is on the 16th. As usual the birthdays are celebrated with Lisa providing cakes with a firework candle - the Dementia Club UK style. Everyone sang Happy Birthday to them both.

Lisa then introduced Arzu who brought 2 big boxes containing many small seedling kit boxes which were donated by the Marks & Spencer Manager. Members received a variety of seedling kits and Arzu explained what they needed to do to grow them. The variety included – Basil, Beetroot, carrot, Chilli pepper, Forget-me-not, Lettuce, Micro cress, Pancy, Parsley, Pepper, Radish and Viola.

It was then time for some music entertainment and it was lovely to see again Mike Marandi. Members who went to the Mickie Driver Variety Show on Valentine’s Day would have met him then. Mike was really entertaining and played some lovely music favourites which members enjoyed and danced to. Mike also had some colourful clothes outfits which one of the members was happy to wear and dance to. Mike was certainly full of surprises and made everyone laugh.

This was a truly wonderful session and everyone left with a smile. Thank toy my volunteers today Angela Chen, Arzu and of course Mark.