A Quiet Life, Still His Own

Moving into a care home is often seen as giving up independence, but Donald’s story shows it doesn’t have to be that way. A well-known figure in Frome and a successful farmer, Donald had long been accustomed to living life on his own terms. After a short respite stay at Frome Nursing Home, a place he already knew well from visiting a loved one, he decided it was the right place to call home.

Life at Frome Nursing Home hasn’t meant stepping away from who Donald is, he’s someone who has always lived with purpose and independence. That sense of self continues. Life hasn’t meant losing the habits and freedoms he values – he still decides when to get up, when to go to bed, when eat his supper, to spend time outdoors in his greenhouse and enjoying spending time in his own purpose-built potting shed – created especially for him by the home and named Donald’s Garden. For Donald, it feels less like an institution and more like a continuation of the life he has always known.

For most of his life Donald began his days before sunrise on his dairy farm in Feltham, where cows waited to be milked, horses to be fed, and hens scratched about the yard. With a herd of 175 milking cows to look after, you can imagine that life was busy and demanding, but it gave him purpose. The routine of the farm, the clatter of buckets, the shuffle of animals in the barn, the quiet fields at dusk, was the backdrop to his world for decades. Stepping away from that life was not the end of his routines, only the start of a new chapter. These days, Donald’s life looks different, but that same sense of purpose is still there.

A collage of photos showing Donald, a resident at Frome Nursing Home, enjoying daily life. He’s pictured smiling in his own potting shed called Donald’s Garden, gardening with a team member, relaxing at a local football match, enjoying a meal, reading the newspaper, and tending to plants in the greenhouse. The images reflect an active, independent lifestyle supported by the home’s caring environment. A quiet life, still his own at Frome Nursing Home: independence, gardening, good food and great company.

Life at Frome Nursing Home

As his farmhouse became harder to manage on his own, Donald decided to try a short respite stay at Frome, he literally knocked on the front door one weekend and said have you got a room! And moved in there and then and never returned to his farmhouse! Donald shared “It’s home from home, everyone’s been very good to me, I’m quite happy doing my own thing and no one says to me that I can’t do this or that. The breakfast is very good here.”

Donald still has purpose every day. He still spends his time doing what he has always loved (minus the cows!) – working with plants, tending to the earth, and being outdoors. When his pots and plants began to take over the garden, Gary from the maintenance team built him the potting shed and it became his favourite place, somewhere he can begin the day with his hands in the soil before moving on to the greenhouse or garden. “I like that I can come and go when I want, and that I can do what I want to do,” Donald says simply

At 93, the harder tasks of farmhouse life – shopping, cooking, cleaning, are no longer a burden. Now he can hang up his wellies, wash his hands, and sit down to a home-cooked meal at a farmhouse-style table. His days still carry the shape of the life he knows, only with the comfort and support that make them easier, as Donald puts it, simply and contently “I just fit in.”

Stories like Donald’s show why care homes are such a vital part of rural communities. In an agricultural town like Frome in Somerset, people want to stay close to the places and families they know. Frome Nursing Home provides residential, respite and dementia care, not just a place to live, but a place where life carries on with purpose and independence. Life doesn’t have to change after moving into care, but when it does, it can change for the better.

If interested in either of Frome’s two separate households – Woodlands and Parsonage, please contact our team to learn more or arrange a visit www.fromecarevillage.com

Have a look at Life at Frome Nursing Home Life Captured

click here for more details or to contact Frome Nursing Home