A SKIPTON five-year-old has proved her artistic acumen after wowing residents and staff atThe Dales care home, in Draughton, with her pumpkin carving skills.

The care home hosted a virtual pumpkin carving competition in the lead up to Halloween and invited friends, family and children of all ages in the community to take part in the spooky activity online.

Children sent in pictures of their magnificent and creative pumpkins with themes ranging from spooky to fantasy.

It was then up to care home residents to pour over pictures of the finished versions and deliberated long and hard to come up with an eventual winner - Darcie Rose, from Skipton.

Darcie won a box set of David Walliams books for her top entry of a Cinderella coach which was fit for a princess and which was captured on camera by her mum and submitted to the competition.

Other prize winners were awarded arts and crafts sets and Halloween cupcakes.

Dorothy Stead, a resident at The Dales said: “It has been a fun day. It was wonderful to see everyone go to so much effort to get into the Halloween spirit. I really enjoyed our virtual pumpkin competition, seeing the children’s pumpkins and our Halloween cinema day.”

The care home, run by Barchester Healthcare, has been hosting a range of activities as part of its ‘life enrichment’ programme.

Activities have included creating a display of poppies for Remembrance Sunday as well as virtual exercises, virtual church services and entertainers; musical performances, live streamed exercise sessions, armchair yoga, religious services, theatre productions, and birthday parties over lockdown arranged by the homes’ activities team for residents within the home and local community groups.