Fun-loving pensioners who were missing out after the world’s biggest arts festival was cancelled have been treated to a bespoke day of events instead.
Cramond Residence, Edinburgh’s most exclusive care home, hosted a Festival Fringe style celebration for its residents since the annual arts event was cancelled due to Covid-19 restrictions.
The day-long ‘Cramond Fringe’ allowed residents and staff to enjoy a celebration of arts and entertainment, while sticking to social distancing rules. There were performances by magicians, jugglers, poets and singers.
Lisa Sohn, Lifestyle Co-ordinator at Cramond Residence, said: “This offered something different for our residents and it was wonderful way to bring everyone together safely.
“While nothing can make up for Edinburgh losing the Festival Fringe this year because of the pandemic, we still had a brilliant day of entertainment and performances here. The residents absolutely loved it.”
Cramond Residence is a purpose-built care home created at a cost of £8 million and opened in October 2018. It combines luxury, five-star accommodation with outstanding clinical standards – with places available from £1,850 per week.
The Cramond Fringe event was held in the residence’s dedicated cinema room – a sizeable, multi-purpose space which enabled strict social distancing. The residence also includes a library, hair salon, private, fine dining space and a physiotherapy room.
Lisa added: “The Fringe celebrations started with a ribbon cutting ceremony in the morning, followed by refreshments over a presentation on the history of the Festival and a Fringe trivia quiz for those more competitive residents.
“After lunch we started our afternoon of entertainment which included juggling, magic shows, skits, jokes, and a sing-song. We tried to create the feeling of a variety of acts by switching the chairs around and creating different ‘stages’.
“Speaking with the residents after the event, they told us they’d loved it a really good time and would love for it to happen again – maybe we will need to make the Cramond Fringe an annual celebration due to popular demand.”
Cramond Residence can care for up to 74 older people and has a specialist dementia unit to care for those with an advanced stage of dementia. Each resident enjoys a luxury room with en-suite bathroom facilities. It maintains a care staff to resident ratio of at least 1:4 at all times.
Spread across three floors, it also adopts a small group living philosophy. That means groups of eight rooms form distinct “houses”, where residents are encouraged to eat and socialise together. This is believed to have played a major role in infection control during the Coronavirus pandemic to date.
Places start from £1850 a week.
To find out more, call 0131 341 4037
