Recently my tics have started to interfere with my speech in a new way. There are times when I start a sentence and it finishes up as a tic. This can be confusing and frustrating as well as funny.

My friends and family usually know, without having to ask, if something’s a tic or not. Tonight though, King Russell had to ask because the sentence-finishing thing had confused him. I’d been saying something normal but ticced “dog” at the end of the sentence. Leftwing Idiot, who’d stopped by for a cup of tea, spent the next ten minutes saying “Tic” or “Not a tic” after everything I said or did to prove he could always tell the difference.

Later on the tics got personal:

“Russell has my periods.”

“My mum’s a mason.”

“My mummy’s a metaphor for Magnus Magnusson.”