Margaret’s Staff Update
Hi everyone,
This is my first update I’ve done since I’ve gone into semi-retirement: reducing my hours to just Fridays. This will drastically reduce how much I have to say. Not entirely a bad thing.
Friday mornings I alternate between going to the garden and the Southern Centre.
I’ll start with Garden Group; this year has seen a lot of changes for our gardening group. Not only have our seasoned gardeners: Simon, Alan, Beth, Craig, Matt, Harley, Clement & Helen been joined by newbies: Cara & Te Hia Hia but after 12 years at the Community Gardens in Smith Street, restructuring has now meant that we have had to move! We were lucky enough to be welcomed into the Linwood Resource Centre Gardens, where we have been given two raised plots and have had to effectively start again with the weeding, digging, and planning of what to grow. We also now have plenty of experienced gardeners at the centre to get advice from; not to mention muffins, scones, gumboots, and jackets; but the favourite addition must be the chickens that everyone takes turns feeding and talking to. We have also been fortunate to have Mike join our gardening team, which means we are now able to go weekly rather than fortnightly and have made a great start to our spring garden. The gardeners have worked very hard preparing the garden and planting broccoli, cabbages, peas, potatoes, bok choy, and with the addition of the transplanted strawberries from our old garden, we have made a great start. Mention must be made to Brendan for the bok choy seedlings and Jacob for the wonderful seeding trolley he built at AJ’s, which produced the broccoli cabbages and peas. It was a bit of a team effort with many non-gardeners getting involved with the watering and wheeling the trolley out in the sun each day. So, it’s fair to say we have made a great start on our garden this spring!
My other activity, on alternate Friday mornings, is the Southern Centre sensory room. This amazing room continues to inspire creativity in everyone who enters it. Craig S has now ventured from chilling on the gel bed to playing the drums and moving coloured lights around the room. Clement loves to sit in the UV room colouring in his Paw Patrol prints. Alan S grabs a microphone and sings with his favourite bands… while sometimes jumping on the mini trampoline. Simon & Elizabeth both enjoy doing a circuit of the room checking out all that’s on offer – especially the odoriferous smells in the aromas centre. Beth loves the coloured lights while Cara & Michelle, newcomers to the room are content to watch & listen. We usually finish off with morning tea downstairs, at Plunge Café.
On Friday afternoons you will always find many of us having far too much fun in the lounge doing our own version of what could very loosely be described as yoga. While l was away earlier in the year, Alan & Simon filled in for me and from all accounts did a fantastic job. We always finish with a great walk around the block to ease us into the weekend.
