Outing to Croome

A few weeks ago, Isabel organised a trip to Croome Court.

It’s somewhere I visit quite often with my daughter and grandchildren and I would strongly recommend it to anyone for a pleasant day out. There’s a castle to explore, lakes and plenty of land to walk over, as well as plenty of places to sit with cake and a drink and have a good chat and a bit of a laugh.

I really enjoyed the experience of being there with people from our MCST group, and was intrigued by how familiar, and yet how different, it felt, to experience a place I know with people I feel I know well in one context, only to find them in an environment I’m used to sharing with different people in a completely different way.

Croome, up until that point, had been engraved in my mind as belonging primarily to my family and me, and, as such, had been designated certain roles that reinforced the engraving, gave it polish and light, tone, and texture. And then, suddenly, new images and experiences had appeared, still in the form of a family of sorts, but a very different ‘family’. My family of lovely friends.

Here we were, weirdly transported out of our little space on a busy road, into the magnificent grounds of a magical castle - an environment now broadened into a new and quite different and delicious experience.

In our room back at the centre, we’re usually sitting in the seats we’re used to sitting in and we know, pretty much, how we’re going to interact. We generally have a laugh, play a bit, chat a bit, sometimes seriously, sometimes not so much. It’s a place where, occasionally, a few tears might fall, and certainly, in my view, one where I feel we’d all feel safe to let them, but where, on the whole, there’s usually a lot of laughter. A place designed for genuine sharing. And because the ‘mix’ that day at Croome was a fresh one, I found both Croome and the group took on a slightly different flavour.

I found it intriguing to be with familiar people - who, at the same time are in most ways strangers to me - in a place where I was totally unused to seeing them. Croome, too, was subtly changed when I viewed it through the eyes of people who I’d not normally be there with. It felt different somehow, not better or worse, but definitely a bit different, as was I. Usually, when I’m at Croome, I’m Mum, or Nana, but now, suddenly I’m with people of my own generation, people I had, up until we took that trip, never seen out of the context of dementia and Age UK H&W, but people with whom I share a very large experience. And thank God for them.

So, I can only say thank you, Isabel, for taking us out like that, for a lovely day with lovely, lovely, friends in an absolutely spectacular place which has always been dear to my heart and is now, just a tiny bit more special :)