Local events for the whole community - Guildford, Farnham, Godalming, Farnborough, Fleet & Aldershot

Banishing the January blues with blooms and optimism

File Icon

Published: 25/01/2021

Local home care provider, Right at Home GF, is combating the January blues by providing its staff with a supply of almost 100 spring bulbs. Once in flower, the bulbs will bloom into reds, pinks, purples, yellows and whites – but definitely no blues.

Alastair Shanks, Managing Director of Right at Home GF explains: “Blue Monday is thought to be the most depressing day of the year and this year it fell on 18 January. Our staff bring sunshine and cheer to our clients every day so, to thank them, we wanted to do something to help keep all our CareGivers and office staff chipper in this particularly tough January. We’re giving staff a potted bulb each to plant in their own garden or container.

“There is something optimistic about nurturing a plant and looking forward to it coming into bloom. My team, like all our colleagues across the care sector, have a doubly hard job at the moment but I’m incredibly proud of how they continuously give their clients’ safety, needs and wellbeing top priority,” says Mr Shanks.

Right at Home GF provides care and companionship in clients’ homes, many of whom are elderly or have significant health needs. Home care providers enable clients to live independently in their own homes for longer and Right at Home prides itself on supporting its team of CareGivers to help all clients enjoy as high a quality of life as possible through genuine companionship, keeping up hobbies and pastimes and, when conditions allow, day trips and social opportunities.

Right at Home has supported local efforts to respond to the COVID pandemic including coordinating volunteers and organising for Christmas meals to be delivered to older people who were alone on Christmas Day.

Blue Monday is so called because, following the celebrations of Christmas and New Year, many people are thought to struggle with long winter nights and gloomy short days, cold weather and financial pressures before spring feels closer.