Just when we had resigned ourselves to the fact that summer was over the temperature soared. The weather forecasters predicted temperatures could reach 30° and it certainly felt very warm sitting out in the garden. 

We had a wonderful time basking in the sun, some of us took a favourite book, some of us just enjoyed the view, taking in the sights and sounds; drinking in the aroma of the flowers, watching the bees go about their work so busily. 

I know that we shouldn’t moan about hot weather, but we do anyway, don’t we?  We had a wonderful morning soaking up the last of summer sun, however it was lovely to get back indoors to the air conditioning to cool off a little.

We weren’t too sure what was going on after lunch, an afternoon of gardening had been scheduled but it was too hot for that. 

We finished our meals and were told to make our way to the tearoom for a surprise. There was much discussion on the way, we tried to find out what was in store from the care team, but they were tight lipped.

One of the things that the lifestyle team excel at is thinking on their feet. When circumstances arise that put a scupper on existing plans, they always have a little something up their sleeve and today what they had up their sleeve was ice cream.

We entered the tearoom and was greeted by the wonderful George who had worked quickly to set up George’s Ice Cream Parlour. 

We were handed a menu and were then given the opportunity to create our own ice cream concoctions. There were many flavours of ice cream, there were sprinkles and flakes, fruits and sauces. There were bowls and cones, wafers and marshmallows. 

It was reminiscent of the 50s ice cream parlours we’d taken our children to when they were little which got us all sharing memories of sticky fingers and chocolate sauce-stained shirts. 

The ice creams were delicious and perfect to cool us down on such a hot day. Thank you, George, so much effort went into this; what could have been a perfectly pleasant ice cream in the tearoom was transmogrified into a walk down memory lane and an afternoon of pure joy sharing our cherished memories. It was a lovely day.