Wolf I found the nanny on our local fb group - I just put out a request for any nannies with spare days. A local lady had 2 days pw Free while her usual employer was on mat leave and had reduced her days. For the rest of the time I used a company called sitters.co.uk to provide a babysitter to come and do all the practical looking after. I was quite impressed actually. They found people at very short notice as I think they have loads of people on their books but all the ones they sent me had done at least 100+ jobs before so well tested as well as vetted. The main drawback was that they sent a different person each time (you can request a favourite person but tbh I don’t think they bend over backwards to send the same person as they don’t want you getting pally and cutting out the middle man - though one of them told me that if you make a strong request they would usually try to book your preference). But anyway, everyone I had was really good and Id use them again. I probably wouldn’t leave my kids alone with someone unknown from an agency because of DS’s special needs but if I had a neurotypical child who was okay with strangers I would as I think they were very well vetted. I have since heard of other people who’ve used that company (for normal babysitting and also while they were in the house but working from home) and been really pleased too. Also, even in London it was a touch under £10 ph, with a small booking fee, which I thought was decent. Anyway, 
for your friend, it sucks
On other matters, I’m amazed you are doing as well as you are! It does sound as though your DS is being very hard on you - you’re the ‘safe’ person to take out his frustration on but not at all nice for you. Does he talk to anyone about what’s been going on and how he feels? Would it help if he did?
Summer I invested in some self-raising flour yesterday 
. Turned it into cheese scones for our local ASD support charity bake sale. RoI is pretty good, around 150% by my reckoning. Also made a lemon drizzle cake 
Bit spendy today... bought some toys and dungarees for dd at aforementioned charity sale just to support, £8. £3 buying back some of my own cake for DH and DCs 🙄. £33 for hair colour plus £5 tip. Just been to Tesco and spent another £55 on ‘stuff’ 
. It’s not my usual shop but they have a few things we like (DH likes their squash, own brand binbags, own brand choc bars) so I bought big stocks of those plus I bought a lot of baking supplies for DS’s birthday next weekend. I have to bake his cake and might also might make cake pops for his class... never made them but how hard can it be?!
North hope DS perks up soon, is he missing college or hanging on in there?