RESIDENTS at a South Hams care home have been trying new things and getting their ‘five a day’ with healthy smoothies.

Ivydene Residential and Nursing Home in Ivybridge’s Staniforth Drive has started the year with a smoothie session, as part of a wider health and wellbeing drive for January.

Peeling and slicing plenty of bananas, celery, melon, tomatoes, and other colourful fruit and winter vegetables, residents and staff have been juicing the produce, creating an interesting range of smoothie combinations.

Resident Gaye Gatehouse, 80, said: ‘It’s always important to eat and drink healthily so it’s lovely to be shown different ways to maintain this.’

92-year-old resident Betty Cridland added: ‘It has been fun to try new things, I really enjoyed all the smells. It’s easy to forget how important healthy eating is, even when you get older, so it’s great to be involved.’

As part of the wellbeing campaign, the home will be keeping busy with a range of healthy activities throughout January. Residents will be enjoying weekly armchair yoga sessions and tai chi, and sampling new fruit and vegetables from different places in the world.

The team of staff will also be working up a sweat when they take on a marathon 26-mile ‘cycle-a-thon’ on the home’s exercise bike.

The Sanctuary Care home’s activities leader Michelle Shail said: ‘We always promote healthy living at Ivydene, but as the New Year approached we thought what better way to up the ante than with a New Year’s resolution that will benefit us all.

‘Everyone is doing amazingly well and the residents are thoroughly enjoying their new yoga sessions and trying new fruit and vegetables, as well as making their own smoothies – there is a real sense of pride when they get to sit down and taste what they’ve created, some of the smoothies were just gorgeous!’