More like a baked potato.

Friday: a Curate’s Egg of a day. Wait, though. Does anyone even know what that is anymore?

Maybe more like a jacket potato baked in a bonfire then - tasty in parts and inedibly raw or burnt in others. 

It’s not all bad, anyway, there are definitely good bits of news – the biggest being that we have signed the papers confirming that Nick is now the official tenant of a lovely ground floor council flat, and been given no less than three sets of keys! Hurrah.

So it’s all systems go, with lots to do. We had been ringing the council for days trying to get a date for the sign up meeting; at last this came through on a day I was working so Simon took Nick.
He came back with the keys and a big sheaf of papers, saying that the housing officer urgently needed to speak to me. Apparently there were some important things he needed to go through with me asap so that Nick’s Housing Benefit can be processed correctly, and it couldn’t wait as he might become liable for…. Simon couldn’t remember but something rather nasty.

We’re now dealing with the chap who actually signed Nick up, not the woman who had been so helpful in bidding for the property in the first place. 

Suffice to say that I have been trying to contact him as requested and he is not in the office. Eventually I track him down and he sounds busy. He doesn’t have access to the papers right now but can we talk this afternoon? He will ring me at precisely 3.30 and explain the situation. Around 3.45 I begin to suspect that he is not going to phone back today and sure enough, the call never comes and sure enough, when I finally call the council again he has left the office.

Meanwhile, I talk to the utilities company who couldn’t be nicer and more helpful. They will connect everything up in time for Nick to move in, don’t worry. 

When will Nick be moving? Well, that’s the next thing. We realised that the insurance company who’d paid for the relocation expenses had included a return journey for removals to Co Durham after the repairs were done on that house.

In fact they’re still ongoing, and Nick is moving to a different address in Sheffield instead but looking at their small print apparently that’s fine and they can accommodate that. I'd been about to start looking through local “man and van” ads but it looks as if we can get the wonderful professional movers who will pack it all up in a jiffy. Moving out of the Consett house was almost painless as they were so good, efficient and funny and almost acrobatic in their skills. And kind to Nick.

In the office though, they won’t talk to me about the arrangements as I’m not the account holder. I get Nick on the line and he fails all the security questions. Now they won’t talk to either of us! Oh, for goodness’ sake! I resolve to call back later and try to speak to someone less jobsworthy.  And send a screenshot of the original paperwork for good measure.

Meanwhile, the social worker (I’d forgotten all about her) has emailed to say that Acme will not be able to provide Nick’s care package at the new address as it’s in a different postcode. But it’s only across the road! I don’t understand.

It’s how the local authority divide their boundaries, she says. End of. So I can’t argue with that.

What a shame, though. We had grown really fond of Acme and they were good to Nick. 

People with HD don’t deal well with change. As the brain's executive functions erode it is harder to manage new events and they need the soothing security of a known routine. 
Now as well as the upheaval of the move itself, he will have to get used to new carers too who don’t know him and may not understand his condition. They’ve all been Ok so far, so we just have to hope for the best. 

But Nick is anxious. It’s the change in circumstance; the upheaval of his quiet, cosy life in the home he has got used to, despite all its issues. He says he is not worried about the move but over the last few days his drinking has increased scarily – a new box of wine almost empty by early evening, several days running.

“What’s going on?” I ask. “Is something bothering you?”

He says not and that he doesn’t know how it’s happened, that he hasn’t been doing anything different. But plainly something is up, and I fear for his safety when I’m not around to try to put a boundary on how much he drinks. He’s got some strange bruises on his temple where I suspect he’s banged his head, but he says he can’t remember falling over. Well, after a box and a half of wine in a single afternoon, you probably wouldn’t, would you?