Our first theme for October was Great British Bake off, members choose to write to a local chef, James Martin to ask advice on cooking in an air fryer especially cakes as we entered a competition with the other James’ Place locations. We were super proud to win the best decorated cake for our berry decorated Victoria sponge cake. Members and staff who visited Andover for the taste testing marked them all as phenomenal and worthy of the real Bake Off. Members made their own chefs’ hats and started the James’ Place recipe book of all our favourites. Celebrating two of our member’s birthday in the same day we made cheese scones which went down a treat.
Autumn was our next Theme, we have been lucky with the weather and have been able to explore the local woods and walk, finding huge mushrooms, luckily Hayley one of our team members is quite knowledgeable on foraging sharing her expertise with everyone. One of our aims at Eastleigh is to engage in regular workshops one of which is rambling with some of our friends from other locations. Knowing that 20 minutes a day in nature reduces stress and increases mental health the members are enjoying their time outside. Members all brought an item of food to make a stew and we practiced making bread and enjoyed a group lunch together washed down with an Autum punch from our mixologists.
Diwali was our next theme and very colourful and tasty it was too! We enjoyed dying rice into the most beautiful array of colours to create Rangoli designs on a large scale we worked hard with being a team and very careful spooning our of the rice into the shapes. We were also rather excited to order an Indian takeaway of starters, once It had arrived we scored each item for both smell and taste, Raita was our clear favourite by far. Members worked hard collaging a large OM symbol. We had a rather tiring day dancing to Bollywood music and a little of our old favourites as well as some chair yoga. Some members tried on a beautiful Sari and they looked fantastic
Halloween is the last week in October and it is going to be Spooktacular! Members will decorate James’ Places, Play spooky games, make up their own spooky dances as well as a trip to Sunnyfield the award winning local pumpkin farm where we will bring pumpkins back to carve.
