The second time I visited Dad over Christmas was far less rosy than the first. It was Boxing Day but decorations at the home had already begun to wilt. And this time, instead of finding Dad sitting in the main room cleanly shaven, my husband and I are told he is still in his bedroom.

I walk down the corridor with trepidation. His bedroom scares me. While many of the residents have cosy rooms, personalised by their families with photographs, lamps and cushions, Dad’s is a barren, institutional space.

It’s not that we haven’t tried. When he first moved in, my mum and sisters took pictures and got a television mounted on the wall. But none of it lasted long. Dad’s habit of destroying things in the night meant that nothing was safe. Now there’s just an empty bracket where the TV was, and the walls are blank, save for pockmarks and the odd, unidentifiable smear.

The focus of the room is his bed, a hospital one with bars to stop him slipping out. And today he’s lying in it, his head tilted to the window and his bare torso only just covered by a sheet.