News

Some of our residents are larger than life, with experiences that could be written in a book… or in Barbara’s case, several travel journals! Barbara’s adventures started when she was 19 years old when she did her first trip around Europe. She hasn’t stopped travelling since then: she’s been to 45 countries, including Uganda, the Galapagos Islands or Cambodia.

Connecting with the community is one of the main core values we have at Real Living. One of our residents at Epsom Village, Diana Burslem, visited St Joseph’s school in Orakei to share her passion of writing with the children. Diana writes books for Red Rocket Readers and she was a teacher for 40 years so she was totally in her element at St Joseph’s. It’s a good thing she was because the little ones only asked about a million questions!

Our superstar chef at Epsom Village, Nick Seaman, has more than 40 years’ experience in cooking. He loves his job because “feeding people is like nurturing them” and working in a retirement village allows him the chance to get to know his diners. There’s nothing that Nick can’t tackle, from a Pink Ribbon breakfast to an international midwinter dinner.

At Real Living sometimes we like to follow the traditions, and other times we like to try something new. For the past two years Epsom Village has moved away from the classic Christmas theme for their midwinter dinner. This time, the village decided to celebrate that the residents are travelling overseas again after the long Covid break with an internationally inspired dinner.

This week we’re celebrating National Volunteer Week sharing the story of our amazing volunteers at Epsom Village. This amazingly huge display is what the residents have collected to send to war-ravaged Ukraine. The lot includes stationery, toiletries, sanitary and baby items, toys, and on top of that, around 260 hand-knitted and crocheted pieces by our own talented residents.

If there’s one thing that our residents know how to do well… it is to have fun for a good cause! Real Living Villages raised a whooping $2800 for the Breast Cancer Foundation with the Pink Ribbon breakfasts they held during May. At Epsom Village a sea of pink covered the lounge while the residents enjoyed succulent Eggs Benedict to raise funds for breast cancer.

Hats off to the Year 8 students from DIO who organised a Mother's Day Concert at Epsom Village to celebrate this special day with our residents. The village was very impressed with the girls' talent when playing classical pieces such as "The Skylark" and "Spring Butterflies". The students got all the residents singing and happily tapping their feet with popular songs like “Dancing Queen” and “Yellow submarine”.

International Nurses Day is celebrated around the world every May 12, to mark the contributions that nurses make to society. Today we would like to pay tribute to this honourable profession by sharing the story of one of them. As a young girl, Nell couldn’t stand the sight of blood, but she studied hard to become a nurse and she devoted her life to this profession. At the end of her career she worked nine years at Mercy Hospice: “I call it my soul work."

Auckland Zoo is celebrating a century of life this year, with many special events including the opening of its South East Asia Jungle Track. Epsom Village didn’t want to miss the fun and their residents were lucky to visit the zoo on a very sunny day. Lots of animals were enjoying the warmth outside, so our residents got close and personal with the giraffes, the siamangs, the meerkats and even the two new tigers!