“Mum was so happy after you left. Thank you for your time, I know we both talked a lot. I think it was partly due to the relief that Mum felt and the fact that you were both so kind and genuinely interested in her difficulties”

I received this lovely message after we went to meet a new client. We never charge for the first meeting, we just go along to get to know each other and to find out what is needed and how we can help. We listen to people’s stories and about the difficulties they have encountered. Sometimes they feel better just from being able to tell their story. 

We work out together what they need most and how we can best support them. We chat about tasks and times and start to form a plan together.

Happy new year to everyone who is part of Hook Home Help and who follows us.

Thank you to everyone who is interested and to everyone who says, “I like reading your stories” 

We hope everyone had a happy Christmas and a good start to 2026. It’s a new year and a new start. On Monday we will all be back to work helping people around the home in Hook. We will be taking down Christmas trees and cards and all the decorations. 

For some people we will be providing companionship after what can be a lonely time. For other people we will be getting on top of the cleaning and housework. For some we will be running errands, or taking them out and about to appointments. 

For everyone we will be listening to how they are and how their Christmas was. We will be talking about what they need more of this year and how we will get there.

As we all settle down for Christmas and the end of the year I realise what a wonderful year this has been for Hook Home Help. I have met so many lovely people and listened to so many stories which have touched my heart. 

We have been able to help so many people in so many ways. Some clients we see several times a week and others only once a month or so. Most people we see once a week and that way we easily form friendships and bonds that run deep.

“I cannot praise Hook Home Help enough. Punctual, adaptable, kind and very understanding of the needs of the client. If you are looking for someone to help in and around the house, and be a companion as required then give them a call. I can highly recommend Penny and ‘her girls’.”

A lovely little review from a lovely client. Her husband has dementia and we go round so that she can go out knowing that he is safe. Carers of people with dementia can apply for 3 hours a week of paid respite care. This lady has decided to top up those payments to get us in so that she is sure to have the same person every week. So we pop in and she pops out.

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What are we going to get our older people for Christmas? If, like me, all you have under your tree right now is nothing other than maybe a cat plotting how to take the tree down, we all have to have a good think about what to get for everyone. I have spoken to a few older people recently who have said that they don’t want any “things” for the house. A lot of people have downsized and have less space so they are reducing their clutter and don’t need anything to add to what they already have. 

Hook Home Help is offering to help with Christmas decorations and preparations. Smokey the cat is also offering to help with Christmas decorations. Unfortunately, his idea of helping involves stalking the decorations, pouncing on them, killing them and eating them. Smokey is now grounded. However all other Hook Home Help team members will be like little elves - finding the tree and the decorations, helping to write and deliver cards, taking people to buy presents and wrapping them up, taking them to the post office and generally being Santa’s little helpers. 

This is our youngest ever team member who joined us a while ago. We are excited to have her on the team for so many reasons, partly because I have known her since she was a little girl skipping around at infant school. She has gone all the way through school with my daughter and is now taking a year out before heading off to train to be a midwife. 

She has always been kind and calm and a pleasure to be with. She was looking for some useful work experience to earn some money and to do something that involved looking after people, so it seemed a perfect fit. She came along with me to meet some clients and see what I do. Then she covered for me when I had to take some time off and finally she took on her own clients that she can walk to, because everyone this age is in the longest ever queue waiting for a driving test. I popped in to see one of her clients and he said, “Isn’t she lovely and such a hard worker”.

This week one of my jobs was to polish some brass things for a lady who has suddenly become much less mobile than she was. She knows she needs to rest but she also really wants her house to be clean and tidy. I think we have all been here. However old we are, when we are laid low with flu or something that means that we can’t do the things we usually do then we feel frustrated and defeated. Some of us feel down and give up, and others push through and do the things but maybe delay our recovery in the process. It is hard for us all to admit when we are less able than we were. 

Last weekend I went to see a dance performance by the Inner Ground Dance Company, a leading contemporary dance company for mature dance performers. They say, "We believe that dance is life-enhancing and creates happier, healthier people connected through the firm bonds of shared experience".

A study from the University of Leeds showed that, "Physical inactivity is recognised as one of the main risk factors for non-infectious diseases and mortality. Over time there has been a decline in physical activity in older adults, and this is particularly apparent in people over 75 years of age. Opportunities to engage adults in physical activity are a global priority as they support healthy ageing and slow progression of disease and disability." So they invited older people to start dancing and at the end of the trial, the researchers found that people who had taken part increased the amount of physical activity they did each week, and kept this up over the 12 months.

Tonight I met this lovely chap, Ray, at The Park gym in Hook. He takes the Recovery Yoga classes. As I was doing this class, I was thinking that one of my clients might enjoy this class and maybe one day she will be well enough for me to bring her down here. Earlier today, I took this client to physiotherapy at the hospital where she was told that it was her commitment to yoga and staying mobile that has helped her recover so well from her recent fall.

Today someone introduced me by saying, “And this is my angel”. When I had arrived she wasn't feeling quite right so I got a drink for her and her husband and encouraged her to eat some fruit. She's trying to move back upstairs following a period of not being able to manage the stairs. So we decided that the best use of my time was to strip the downstairs bed, change the sheets on the upstairs bed, put the washing on and take as much upstairs as possible so that she wouldn't be tempted to carry things while she was managing the stairs themselves. That was more my thought than hers, she is hoping to be back to normal, but really isn't, and meanwhile everyone around her is trying to prevent her from falling again. 

Today is World Kindness Day. Today the first thing I did was to help someone with some forms. They struggle to understand the forms and they struggle with written English. They were so grateful that at the end they held my hand and said, “I don’t know what I would do without you”.

This week the sun has set for the last time for  one of our beloved clients. We are saddened by the loss but grateful to know that he went peacefully in the home that he loved. Over the past few months he didn’t often leave his home and we were one of the few people who he saw other than his immediate family who were always on hand to look after him.

When his family member called me this morning, she said, “Thank you for all your help, he always said that his helper was very hard working and lovely company and he did enjoy her visits”. 

We have only known him a few months but he had become part of the Hook Home Help family and will be missed.

This week I took a lovely lady to visit her brother in a care home. They are both in their nineties and are both doing so well but recently her brother has had some problems and has had to go into a home. She told me about this casually when we were chatting over tea one day. She seemed a bit concerned so I asked if she would like to go and visit him and see how he is. It was quite a way but I assured her that we should go while he was well enough for visitors and that some things shouldn’t be put off. She had a think and booked an afternoon when we were both free. 

“I feel so much better for sitting out in the garden with you and seeing the garden come together and feeling the sunshine and being with you. Thank you so much, I would never have come outside if you hadn't suggested it”