“I have had Hook Home Help once a week for about 8 weeks now. This has been such a big help for me, doing the house work that I find difficult to do now and also having someone to chat to while they are here. I am asked if there is anything else that they can do for me once the chores are done. Hook Home help are so very helpful and willing to help wherever they can and so thoughtful. I don’t know what I would do without them.”

The sun has set for a very special client. We had too many life connections for this to be an entirely professional relationship. She looked after my son at school when he was little and her son was one of his favourite teachers. When she came to me for help, she made it clear that she wanted me to be her helper because of these connections over the years. Looking back at our messages, from the first one she said, “I would like to book a visit with you. I know you and totally trust you”.

Today Hook Home Help were helping each other as well as the clients. When Amy’s car broke down she was worried about getting her son to school and about letting her clients down, so this morning I picked them both up from home and went on the school run for the first time in a while

This is where I dropped her off to work before going to my own clients, knowing that Emily was going to pick her up and take her on to see some other people and from there, she could then walk home.

“You did so much this morning. When I went upstairs, the bed was made, everywhere else clean and today etc etc. A nice cup of tea and a very tasty cake!! You always boost my spirits. Thank you for everything you do for us”

This is a lovely review from a client who we have been supporting for about a year. Teresa joined the team at the start of 2026 and has been looking after this lovely couple through all the ups and downs that they have been through this year. They both seem decades younger than their real age. Such lovely people with such a lovely family and Teresa has become part of the family.

What we do and who we are to people ranges from those who see us cleaning ladies to those who adopt us as part of the family. With this client, I really feel welcomed into their family. I am always greeted with a hug from the client and a lot of bounces and tail wagging from her dog. On this day the dog ran round and round me in a hundred circles and then brought me her blanket and her teddies and then fell asleep with her head on my foot as if it was a pillow. 

It was so sweet! Luckily this trip was more about companionship than anything else so we chatted away until she woke up and wandered off. 

“The team members have been, without exception, pleasant, efficient and unfazed by any requests. An excellent service providing a very helpful hand, well positioned between a caring or cleaning service. I have already mentioned them to others as I’d have no problem with recommending them.”

This is a recent review from a lovely client with an unusual request - we usually go in once a week but while her daughter was away, she needed some lifts to medical appointments in different places at different times, and someone to pop in every day to help with shopping and just to make sure she was OK and that everything was ship shape. 

This week we have some stories involving ice cream. One client sent me a message saying, “I just want to say that Amy has done a fabulous job on a mucky bathroom this morning. I really value her help”. Then almost at the same time, Amy messaged me to say that this client had given her some money to get her little boy an ice cream! How sweet.

We have another client who is giving her helper ice cream to take home for her children every week! Sometimes the client has met the children and sometimes they haven’t. Either way they are all becoming part of the Hook Home Help family.

This is a painting done by one of my clients who is living with dementia. The day I saw him, he was painting this and I asked if I could take a photo. He told me that when he was younger he used to win prizes for art and now it was all he could do to try to remember which colours to use and which colour he had on the brush. In starting this conversation he was suddenly able to give me a revealing insight into how much he was suffering.

This week my daughter joined the team. Previously she shadowed the person who was leaving to get to know the clients and how they like things done. We also met a new client who is recently out of hospital and lives far from her family. She asked if we had time to chat and we did. 

She told us all about her children and their partners and where they all lived and how they all were. She talked about her husband who had passed away 40 years ago but the way she spoke about him made us both shed a tear. His photo is everywhere and she pointed to one and said, “There he is, in his uniform, looking so handsome.” 

We both gulped and blinked and tried not to cry.

“Penny provided much-needed support, kindness, and companionship at home during the early stages of my mum’s Alzheimer’s journey. Her calm and caring nature made a real difference, not only to my mum’s daily life but also to my own peace of mind. It was incredibly reassuring to know that Penny would be there to help out when I couldn’t, offering both practical support and genuine friendship. 

Her patience, reliability, and understanding gave us comfort during a challenging time, and I would highly recommend Hook Home Help to anyone looking for compassionate and trustworthy care.”

On the hottest week of the year we have been helping people in and out their homes. We are making sure they are feeling well, and drinking enough and letting families know how their relatives are. Communication is always important but particularly so at times like this. 

We are there to do the little jobs, to change the lightbulbs, change the duvet cover, water the plants etc but also to make sure the house is cool and that people are coping. In this heat it is often helpful to have another pair of hands available as simple tasks can become too hard to contemplate.

This is the day that I went to teach a session on mindfulness at the retirement flats in Hook. Some people had come to my previous session and some were new. I talked about how practicing mindfulness can help with stress and anxiety. This can be really useful for older people who can have a lot to worry about and sometimes no one to talk to about it. 

It is easy for our thoughts to spiral and for the worries to increase. Mindfulness helps us to feel calmer and to see the thoughts more objectively. A small amount of practice can make a big difference to how we feel and how we deal with negative thoughts. 

Emily joined the team earlier this year to give her days some structure and to make a positive difference to her local community. She started out on our team of helpers, covering for others and then taking on her own clients. This was a massive career change from the world of IT but she adapted seamlessly. She took on a range of clients with diverse needs providing bespoke companion care to all of them. 

During this time we had a rollercoaster of new clients starting and staff holiday to cover. I was so grateful for Emily’s ability to be totally flexible, unflappable and to deal with all the changes. Sadly her regular client passed away suddenly, but peacefully. The family thanked us both for all our help and for making his last few weeks so happy. We attended the only funeral that has made us both laugh and cry, and then she was left with some time on her hands.

A heart warming gift from a client

“Dear Emily
I can't tell you how super it was to meet and get to know you. It was as if you were a friend who I had known for ages. Thank you for all your understanding, initiative and care. As you can tell I am so happy to have got to know you.”

One day earlier this year one of my clients called me on a Tuesday morning. I had been going in to see her twice a week for over two years. We would email each other between visits with any information that seemed important, and sometimes to say, “Remind me to tell you what happened today because it will make you laugh!”.

She loved the seaside so whenever I went to the sea, I would take her a photo or a video. She had been housebound for many years but she used to go and visit the seaside via a CCTV link that apparently anyone can access to look at Sidmouth beach. She would tell me about the waves and the people as if she had been there in person. I knew she was lonely and wouldn’t be seeing anyone over the weekend so sometimes when I was in Southsea, I just sent the photo from the sea with a little message so she knew we were thinking of her and she had some contact with the outside world.

And so we plodded on, but she never ever phoned so when she did my heart leapt. We knew she was poorly but things had got worse and she told me that the surgery had called her an ambulance. She sounded shocked and not sure what to do so I said, “Would you like me to come and help pack a bag?”, and she did so I went straight over.

“My mum lives in a care home and Penny has kindly worked with me to arrange for weekly 1:1 private helpers to spend time with her. The helpers engage mum in activities, take her out, do jigsaws with her and share a coffee and a chat. She has dementia and is very deaf, so having this 1:1 time with wonderful helpers each week is very valuable. I also really appreciate the feedback that I get each week, about how she is and what she enjoyed doing. Thank you so much to Penny, Jan and Amy. “ 

This is a lovely review from a rather different client. I never thought we would be going into care homes but the management at The Old Raven have been very kind to allow us in and to have some time with this lady. Each week we send her daughter a little report on how she is doing, sometimes with a photo. Jan takes her some flowers so they can arrange them together and so she has fresh flowers in her room every week. She tells her daughter about the visits and she calls Jan “The Flower Lady”.