In what still felt like the height of COVID times, I found myself in a very overheated lounge, mask and visor on, shouting at the top of my lungs “Two and two, twenty two, two little ducks, quack quack!!” This was followed by the sound of one resident (who was particularly hard to satisfy) bellowing “come onnnn, hurry up, tooo slow”, what can I say you can’t always be a crowd pleaser.

In general, Bingo was largely popular on a Friday in the care home that I worked in and most residents seemed to genuinely look forward to it. I also felt some sense of achievement when I could see some of the heavily hearing impaired residents crossing off a number even though it meant my voice would be impaired for the rest of that day.

As well as improving my bingo calling skills while at the care home, much to one of the residents’ disappointment, I also improved on my commentary and refereeing skills. I enjoyed hosting our unique version of ‘football matches’. So much fun can be had when kicking a football around when still sat in armchairs and using walking frames as a goal.

Countless afternoons were also spent playing boules in the lounge, a simple game that was easy for everyone to get involved in. Something that was not so simple was when I decided to set up a painting activity. All was going smoothly until I looked up at one of the residents next to me and her entire mouth and bottom half of her face was green! I quickly whipped the paintbrush out of her hand and exclaimed “No you can’t eat the paint” to which she calmly replied, “Well I thought it was an apple”. At that moment I genuinely thought I’d be blamed for poisoning a resident. This theme cropped up again when this particular resident thought that jigsaw pieces looked like toast.

My time at the care home was filled with more laughter than one may think and we did some great activities from decorating pizzas to having group sing-a-longs.

It is the simple things in life that matter. My experiences proved that, even in tough circumstances, you never lose the ability to share the fun and laughter of playing those well-loved games with others and it is in those moments your troubles just melt away for a second.

Joint winner of the 2025 Trent Dementia blog competition