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Out and About

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The warmer weather and easing of restrictions has meant lots of trips out and about. We have explored new places, tried new activities and had a great time engaging with our community! 

Trips to Weston

Some of us love the beach, so what better way to spend the hot summer days than visiting our local beach: Weston-super-Mare. We have mooched in the shops, treated ourselves to ice creams, paddled in the sea and even had a ride on a donkey!

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Walks in the country side

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Warmer days only spur us on to get out and about to explore our local country side. We have enjoyed lots of walks in Gloucester, visiting new places and returning to some of our favourites.

A break at Butlins

One of our favourite places to have a break, is Butlins. We had a week long stay, enjoyed lots of good food, discos and exploring the attractions. 

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Fruit Picking

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June kicks off strawberry season, so what better way to enjoy one of our favourite fruits than going to pick our own? 

We visited Primrose Vale, and had a great time picking the juiciest strawberries, sneaking a few to snack on along the way.

Holidays to Burnham on Sea

For the last week of June, we will be holidaying at Burnham on Sea. Thanks to Cheltenham Lions, we are holidaying in a static caravan all kitted out to make it fully accessible and easy for us to use! The site is close to the beach, a lovely fishing lake and plenty of beautiful walks – we can’t wait to explore! 

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Visiting animals

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We love animals, so jumped at the chance to visit some animals. We spent the day looking after chickens and walking sheep – it was great fun! 

West Midlands Safari Park

We had a lovely day out at West Midland Safari Park. We had our first tattoo (temporary & glitter of course) won a prize on the Hook-a-duck & fed the animals.

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Lunch at the Pub

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One of our favourite things to do to break up the week is to have lunch at a pub. This time, we treated ourselves to a cocktail – to celebrating being able to go back to our local.

Holiday in Cirencester

We had a holiday in Cirencester. We really enjoyed visiting the bird park and getting out and about somewhere new.

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RDA Lessons are back

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Horse riding is one of our favourite activities. Lockdown has meant we haven’t been able to visit the RDA to take part in our weekly lessons. But since restrictions have eased, we have been back and a few weeks ago we took part in a small competition, winning a colourful rosette. 

Exploring the Cotswolds

We are lucky to live so close to the Cotswolds. It means days out to beautiful places are just a short drive away. We have recently visited Bourton-on-the-Water. We enjoyed a picnic by the river, and looking at all the lovely shops along the busy high-street.

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Summer has arrived!

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After months of cold, damp weather – summer has finally arrived in Gloucestershire! To say we are all thrilled, is an understatement. The warmer weather, alongside the restrictions easing has meant lots of us have been able to get out and about a lot more. We have visited new places, developed our living skills and enjoyed catching up with our friends. 

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Trip to Weston

We took a day trip to Weston and spent the day exploring. Walks along the beach, paddling in the sea, mooching in shops, riding the Ferris wheel and enjoying an icecream! 

The pubs are open

After a long wait, we are able to go back to the pub! Lunch and a cocktail is such a treat, we really had a lovely time. 

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Gardening Services

Outside of our normal Garden Project activities we also visited one of the charity’s supported living houses, to help get on top of their garden: which suddenly sprung into life during the warmer weather. 

Our Social Enterprise and their new Courtyard area

Since reopening our Social Enterprise (The Portland Guest House) we have been really busy! Lots of guests have visited us, and left fantastic feedback on social media, booking.com and trip advisor etc! 

But the sun has also meant we have had time to sort out our courtyard. The Guest House now has outdoor seating available, pots of flowers and a mini herb garden. 

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BBQs at the Garden Project

The summer also means we are back BBQing at the Garden Project. We have had a few evenings sat together, trying new foods on the BBQ. 

Picnic in the park

From Phoenix, we are only a short walk away form one of our favourite places – Pittville Park. So we decided as the weather was picking up, we would all visit the park for a picnic, quiz and ice cream. We can’t wait to do it again with more of our friends who are coming back to Phoenix in coming weeks. 

We have lots of exciting things happening over the next few months, and hope this warm weather continues so we can all enjoy being outside! 

Earth, Air, Fire & Water…

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symbols at the garden project, using our own willow clippings.
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At the garden project we have been learning about the four elements; earth, air, fire and water. We then decided that we would make these symbols to hang in the garden. Using cuttings from our willow tree, we got to work. It took us some time to snip each bit of willow to the right length, and put the symbols together – but now they are hung in the garden, in our small woodland walk patch. 

This is the symbol for Fire.
This is the symbol for Earth.
This is the symbol for Air.
This is the symbol for Water.
Here are our willow elements hung up.

Spring is on its way…

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Spring is on the horizon and that means we are spending more time preparing the garden for the busiest few months of the year. We have worked hard over the last few weeks to tidy up, clearing away debris, trimming back trees, bushes and over grown shrubs, weeding, washing pots, cutting the grass and organising the compost heaps.

As our garden slowly begins to wake up after winter, we have been lucky enough to have snowdrops and daffodils flower, and had many rain free days. Now the hard work begins as we sow seeds in our outdoor pots, raised beds and in the poly tunnel. So far we have planted carrots, tomatoes and spinach – ready for our summer BBQs. 

We have lots more to do, but can’t wait for the warmer days ahead when we can sit out, relax and enjoy the beautiful garden, and our freshly picked fruit and veg.

Keep checking back to see what we get up to in coming months. 

Our new found love of cycling

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With many of our usual activities being put on hold, our team have encouraged us to visit wheels for all. Lots of us have been, and thoroughly enjoyed cycling using the different bikes they have available. We have had so much fun, that it has now become an activity many of us take part in twice a week, Our new found love of cycling means that as we get more comfortable some of us are trying new things, and working hard to take part on our own! 

 

Making a house our home

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Over the last week we have been busy working on our living skills, by decorating our room. After a few days choosing a colour, we decided on blue, so got to work preparing the walls. We filled holes, smoothed the scrapes and cleaned up the skirting boards. 

A few members of the garden project chipped in, helping to cut in around the skirting boards, plug sockets and switches before we got to roll the first coat on the wall. 

Once that had dried, we worked all weekend to do another coat and add the  finishing touches, hanging our collection of hats along the beam and our framed Forest Green Rovers football shirt back up on the wall. 

We have really enjoyed decorating our room, and the transformation from magnolia to our favourite colour has made it feel more like our home. We hope to be able to help some of our other friends transform their places and use our new skills again soon.

Life in lockdown…

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We are now a little over a month into lockdown 3.0, so we thought we would share with you some of the things we have been getting up to across our services during this time.

Like many of you, life in lockdown for us is quite a change to our usual routines as we all enjoy getting out and about, seeing friends, family and being an active part of our community. For lots of us our regular activities have been cancelled (many of us our missing trips to the local RDA and tea with the ponies), so we have found other things to keep ourselves busy. Some of us decided to take up the offer of an online training course, we spent the day learning how to make felt and meeting new people through our I-pad! 

Unlike the first lockdown, almost a year ago, this time Phoenix is able to stay open. Whilst we have reduced numbers and are now closed on a Wednesday, we have still be able to enjoy ourselves and try new things. We created a new game with our Boccia balls, had lots of music and movement sessions, spent some time in the kitchen and have been busy in our craft rooms. 

Our Garden Project is back in full swing, we spent the early parts of January chopping up Christmas trees and tidying up hedgerows, over grown trees and weeding. On wetter days, we have been playing games or busy in the poly tunnel preparing for spring. We have even had a snow day where we built a snow man! 

Unfortunately our social enterprise is closed through out the current lockdown but whilst we cant welcome guests, we have been busy behind the scenes clearing away from Christmas, and working on our courses which we hope to have accredited in the next few months. 

Merry Christmas from StVs and StGs

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As we are just a week away from Christmas day, we would like to wish all of our incredible staff and amazing supporters a very Merry Christmas!

This year we have had to face a number of difficult decisions, including the temporary closures of The Phoenix and our new social enterprise The Portland. Our wonderful staff team have had to adapt and some faced new challenges by moving into different services within the charity. It is with the dedication of our staff team that we have been able to continue being busy, trying out new activites and having lots of fun, so we would like to say a HUGE thank you to each and every staff member, your support has been invaluable.

Our Kitchen Garden Christmas!

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What’s better than a Christmas Dinner, with home grown veg? 

Sprouts, Potato’s, Parsnips and Carrots from our ‘kitchen garden’ at the Garden Project – we’ve had a lovely morning cooking and playing games before sitting down together to celebrate 2020 at the garden project!

A huge thank you to our wonderful Gardener – Maddy, who has helped to turn this strange year into one full of fun. We have been busy trying new things, tackling new challenges, growing new vegetables, making new garden accessories and most importantly, making and spending quality time with our friends!

To find out more about our garden project or our other activities please click here. 

Cycling, Coffee and Cake!

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This morning at the garden project, we decided we would like to make the most of the dry weather and get out and about! So we got ready for a bike ride and before we knew it we we’re out and about cycling around Cheltenham.  Before too long, we thought it was time to stop for some snacks and that’s when we thought of our friends at The Bayshill! 

Located just under a mile away from our Garden, The Bayshill have just opened up their new coffee shop. With outdoor seating, and some seating in a marquee – its the perfect place for us to stop. They are now serving hot food, soft drinks and homemade cakes, and lots of their drinks and snacks are even on a meal deal. We loved it.

They are now open Monday to Saturday 7.30am till 5pm and Sunday 9am till 4pm, we really recommend you visit – Santa’s Grotto is now open too. For more information, please visit their website. 

 

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