Prep for carers

Respite often means
I need to have a lie down!
It's a bit backwards!

These are the bags I packed for Ben's carers session today, along with the print outs of activities and postcodes etc.  They've also asked me to add the miles between venues so the mileage forms are easier for them to fill in :-/ It almost didn't happen today, as last night I realised that the rota was showing a manager as one of Ben's carers for this session, rather than a carer.  I texted her at 5:30pm last night to ask and she said no it wouldn't be her but she'd refer it to the 'on call' team to check (bless her for answering on a Friday night). At 9:45pm I had a call from the on call team saying there'd been a mistake and they didn't have a second carer (he's staffed 2:1) so they would have to cancel.  We fretted over how to tell Ben and both woke up early to sit at breakfast together and deliver the message as a united force.  Because we'd handled it carefully, Ben managed it pretty OK and we were just starting to breathe a sigh of relief when my phone rang (7:45am) to say they'd found a second carer and we can still go ahead.  It was good news but it's hard to explain the roller coaster we'd been on with it all.  Anyway, I got his bag(s) ready and he went off.  Mr KCNQ2Haiku had a bike ride and I took the dog for a bit of a stomp and then we went out for lunch together.  We can't do evenings out, so occasional lunches give us some special time together.  We finished up by popping to Home Bargains for a sponge to wash the car, very romantic!  On the walk home (2:45pm) we had a call from the carers asking where we were because they were on the doorstep bringing Ben home, as he was tired.  Sigh, it was a full hour and 15 mins early which is really frustrating.  Turns out he announced he wanted to go home and they have had so many incidents with aggression that they felt they should just go with his wishes.  I pointed out to them that arriving when we're not home is just going to make him more agitated and not less.  We talked it through and I'll talk to the management team too about how to make sure everyone feels confident managing his behaviour, which we know can be extreme.. but if we're going to have a break, it should actually be a break!
Anyway, I've said I'll play his Horrible Histories board game and Leo is looking longingly at the door, so I think I'm needed!
Have a lovely Saturday evening all :-)
PS.. in the interests of balance I must say he slept really well last night! So that was a bonus :-)