Care UK

Care home living as it should be

Living at Bickerton House and Parsons Grange care homes is all about enjoying the finer things in life. Along with great care, our skilled teams are passionate about providing varied and fulfilling activities, entertainment, and outings - all designed around your unique needs, interests and wishes.

Care UK is the most awarded large care provider: we take pride in delivering the very best. So, when you join us, our friendly team will find out all about your life, interests, tastes and wishes so we can shape every aspect of your care and lifestyle - even the dishes we serve - to suit you.

Relax in luxurious surroundings

Bickerton House and Parsons Grange have everything you need to enjoy an enviable lifestyle, including their own hair and beauty salons, cinema rooms and gardens. Every bedroom is spacious, beautifully furnished and has its own wet-room ensuite. Ground floor rooms even have their own patios and direct access to our landscaped gardens or courtyards.

We offer a lively and varied activity and entertainment programme, we’ll support you to make new friends, continue attending churches or groups in the community, or even take on roles around the homes – resident ambassador or head gardener perhaps? And if there’s a wish you’d like to fulfil, we’ll even do our best to make it happen!

Enjoy each day your way

Recently, residents of Bickerton House and Parsons Grange have been enjoying everything from gardening and exercise sessions, to baking and art classes.

At Bickerton House residents have been playing a round or two of darts, spending time reminiscing with their treasured photo albums and celebrating International Women’s Day. At Parsons Grange the home has been honouring some very special birthdays and enjoying some of their favourite hobbies including jigsaw puzzles and crosswords. Be sure to ‘like’ us on Facebook to keep up-to-date with what’s happening at our homes.

Discover a five-star lifestyle

At Care UK, we have more ‘Outstanding’-rated homes than any other provider, and over 6,500 families trust us to care. If you’d like to find out more about the fulfilling lifestyle we offer at Bickerton House and Parsons Grange, call us on 0333 305 4243 or visit careuk.com/berkshire

Yoga & Sport

You may not immediately see the benefit for a sport like golf, however many of the top pros now incorporate yoga into their training and life including Rory McIlroy and Dustin Johnson. Simple observation of a golf swing will identify the potential shearing effect to the spine and the asymmetry of the sport that, over time will only increase muscular imbalances.

Yoga helps golfers improve flexibility, strength, balance, and breathing. It also helps prevent back problems caused by twisting the spine and helps to improve range of motion to facilitate a proper swing to be fully executed. Golfers may be prone to onesided or uneven muscle development. Yoga postures can strengthen weak areas and help ease muscular tension. Golf can also lead to tight hips, quads and hamstrings so golfers benefit from poses that open up the hips and stretch the hamstrings. In addition, golfers will also benefit from upper body strength from a yoga practice.

When you start practicing yoga, you quickly realise the mental benefits as well, you find the breathing techniques will allow you to clear your mind so you can focus totally when you need to, either on the tee or on the green.

Your breathing pattern is a direct reflection of the level of stress on the body and mind at any given point and is a mirror of your internal physical and mental condition. An effective tool to “de-stress” on the golf course is with the practice of slow deep rhythmic breathing. Incorporate deep breathing into your pre-shot routine. Set your stance, take a deep inhalation, then a “cleansing” exhalation. This technique can offset the first tee jitters and create more rhythm and “feel” in your golf swing.

If you want to get the most out of your body and mind, a 5, 10, 15 minute stretching routine in the locker room will work wonders. There isn’t a single golf pro on this planet that would turn up on the first tee of a tournament without stretching. Not one. Think about that. If the best golfers in the world all “stretch” before getting on the first tee, don’t you think it’s a pretty good idea? The stretching will also help prevent injuries because it acts as oil for your stiff muscles and joints. Without that oiling your swing will be stiff and wooden.

For those looking to improve their game, practicing yoga for golfers will work with your body to help you play your very best.

Richard

Facebook - richard’s yoga www.richardsyoga.org