Having a Ball

Gwyn and Tracey cycled to meet a group of friends in the Legends Lounge in the Elite Performance Centre at the Incora Ground to join in with The Derbyshire Cricket Foundation's Monday Mates session. This is a welcoming event, open to everyone, but particularly supportive to those living with dementia and their carers.

Before the session began, we helped with putting out the chairs and getting the mugs ready for tea. Gwyn popped down to reception to give a personal welcome to guests as they arrived, giving them directions up to the lounge, and Tracey helped people find a seat.

The first part of the morning was relaxed fun and chatting, with a paper-based quiz, some jigsaws, and interaction with our visitors. We had Sarah from Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service, who is able to arrange safe and well visits for vulnerable people, providing free smoke alarms and giving safety advice. There was also Jack Tymon from Radio Derby, and the youngest member of the group, Baby E, only eight weeks old, who'd brought her mum along, too.

We had a group games session, which was great fun, starting with passing a single beach ball between people sitting in a circle, and then bouncing the ball on a parachute with ten handles. Things got more tricky as Lucy added another ball, then another... G&T definitely got a workout running after the balls as they bounced hither and thither.

The grand finale was when Lucy tipped a bag of smaller balls onto the parachute, and challenged the team to see how long it took them to shake them off. They managed to achieve this in only 9 seconds! It took us quite a bit longer to pick up all the balls, and longer still to deflate the beach balls because of the tricky valves.