Community spirit a bonus for Peter
Mr Peter Abigail, who moved into his unit in the Resthaven Bellevue Heights Independent Retirement Living village in September 2015, is not one to sit around being idle. Luckily, he explains, here at Resthaven you can do ‘as much or as little as you like.’
‘After my wife died, I was in this big three bedroom house all by myself, there was no point in me being there,’ he explains.
‘I’ve got a son in Blackwood, and a daughter in Coro [Coromandel Valley]. And I knew the lad from number 70 through golf. So it was a combination of things. It just made sense to move here.’
‘I only had one friend when I first moved in, now I call twenty or thirty people my friends.’
‘It’s a community here, and it’s a very good one.’
Peter, who is President of the Blackwood Probus Club and Captain of the Airforce Association Golf Club, is also on the Resthaven Bellevue Heights Independent Retirement Living management committee.
‘I arrange the entertainment and speakers for our monthly meetings, choirs, things like that,’ he says.
‘We also do a quarterly lunch in Gum Tree Lodge [the communal village area], and happy hour at 5pm on the last Friday of the month.’
‘We have a large barbeque with a hood that we use as a pizza oven, then we show a movie. Last week, we watched “Court Jester,” an old Danny Kaye movie [1955].’
The village also has a mini bus for outings, which Peter drives to Westfield Marion every Tuesday.
‘On the second Wednesday, I do “Pete’s Mystery Tours,”’ he says. ‘I try to go somewhere interesting.’
‘There are exercise classes on Wednesday mornings, so we go after that.’
‘There are also indoor bowls in Gumtree Lodge on Thursdays.’
‘There’s no reason why anyone who lives here can’t do anything they like.’
‘That’s what makes this place.’
Find out more about independent retirement living at Bellevue Heights
Resthaven independent retirement living villages are co-located with residential aged care homes at Bellevue Heights, Malvern, Marion, Paradise, and Port Elliot, with apartments available at Resthaven Leabrook.
Resthaven’s residential and in-home care and support options are offered throughout metropolitan Adelaide, the Adelaide Hills, Murraylands, Riverland, Barossa, Fleurieu Peninsula and the Limestone Coast.