It’s hard to imagine, but it wasn’t that long ago that Priors Hall was a building site, a hive of construction activity. Now it is a beautiful housing estate, filled with wonderful people with interesting stories to tell.

We are very lucky to be living within such a wonderful community and to feel included. I worried that a care home may become isolating, but the opposite is true. I would not have ventured out for walks alone, not that I couldn’t manage them but, I just don’t think walking alone is a thing that many people do.

Here at Priors Hall, we take every opportunity to get out and take in some fresh air and stop and chat to our neighbours. There’s the lovely lady with her dog and the mother’s with their children on the school run. We’ve chatted to lorry drivers, delivery men and well, just about everyone we meet stops to say hello and give us a smile. I don’t think that realise just how much we look forward to our interactions.

We have lots of plans to invite the community into our home, unfortunately up until now they have been scuppered by the virus, but we are hopeful that we will be able to go ahead with some of our planned events soon.

I’m sure that many of the people that stop and say hello have no idea just what a difference it makes to us; it’s not that we are lonely, you could never ne lonely at Priors Hall, I have more social interaction now than I’ve had in a long time but it feels good to be considered part of the community, everyone wants to be part of something, to feel a sense of belonging and during our strolls around the estate, we feel just that.