With a variety of Seasonal aromas, such as herbs, spices and various items from nature’s harvest, residents were treated to a visually intriguing display on our little wagon, with a conversational tablecloth whose fabric intrigued many of the Residents, along with a lovely Orchid plant, also for visual stimulation, to seek people’s attention. Then we had 10 little pots containing items I had harvested from my garden, such as lavender, rosemary & sage, and other familiar kitchen smells, of lemon zest & garlic. Also featured were items from my local Memorial park, … a conquer (which I cracked in order to heighten the aroma), plus a collection of Autumn leaves, and an “old time” smell that many “ladies of a certain age” would be familiar with, that is of Rose water!
Residents were invited to look, smell, & touch, (if they wanted too), the contents of the little pots, and then guess what the item was!
It was amazing some of the guesses that residents came out with, some completely unique (such as Pam thinking the ground nutmeg was “lose tobacco” – which I thought was very clever of her, as she did use to run a small Hobby Farm, & perhaps had chewed tobacco in the past, like many farmers used too)!
We also had mini Pumpkins, and a member of the Gourd Family (the little round green & yellow striped looking Squash, shown in the pictures), which everyone enjoyed passing around, and touching and guessing as to what they were, and what they would do with them, whether to cook and eat them, or not!?
The Sensory session evolved into a wonderful “Guessing Game” quiz and also prompted a lot of Reminiscence for people, & storytelling of happy tales of Gardening, Cooking and Working with some of the products we featured.
Marjorie recalled her favourite bars of Soap always had Lavender in them, and Diana commented that she always used to carry a little glass “vile” of Rose Water in her handbag when going out of an evening in London.
Pat enjoyed smelling the fresh cut Rosemary herbs, as she said it reminded her of her dear Father, who always grew Rosemary in their garden, and Pam smelt the garlic and looked up just as Gary was in the lounge in his Chef Outfit, and looked over at him and said “I think he probably would use this in his cooking”!
What remarkable comments eh, and these are just a few of the positive feedbacks Kirsty & I were told!!
