While Bean is very curious and asks lots of questions, one thing she’s never asked me is why I use a wheelchair, she’s always just accepted my chair as part of me.

Since she was tiny, I’ve tried to find books or toys that include disabled characters because I want the things around her to reflect her world and family.…

My niece Bean was four at the weekend. She’s been enjoying telling me her new age, and I’m continuing to enjoy watching her grow in independence and chattiness.

The pandemic’s meant that Bean and I haven’t been able to hang out together as much as either of us would like.…

As a child I loved Lego and it’s younger sibling Duplo. I was a proud member of the Lego Club – in fact 35 years on I still have my membership badge!

And I still love it, but as a dyspraxic with Tourettes, the fine motor control required for more grown up Lego projects has always been in scarce supply for me.…

It’s early Friday evening and London’s bathed in gentle sunshine and I’ve just had some spontaneous interactions with girls which were simultaneously blissfully mundane and soul-enrichingly exceptional.

Claire and I went to meet Bean and Fat Sister in the park after nursery.…

Leftwing Idiot, among other things, is a self-confessed Sneaker Head. As he often reminds me, he’s been that way since secondary school when having the wrong pair of trainers was a risky business. Apart from the occasional wild goose chase across town for an exclusive release (and a controversial amount of storage space in the castle) this obsession has had very little negative impact on me.…

It’s been almost a month since Katie joined the Touretteshero team as our new Solidarity Worker. She’s working on some exciting projects that we hope will provide better support and creative opportunities for children, young people and adults in our communities.…

This year it will be a decade since I started experiencing daily tic attacks – these are episodes of intense tics that look seizure-like and need similar management.

During these episodes I nearly always lose communicative speech. This means I can’t choose the words I say, but I still have vocal tics, which range from simple repetitive noises to complicated sentences.…

Leftwing Idiot loves Kombucha. I do not.

Kombucha is a non-alcoholic fermented drink that’s popular in North America, which is where he discovered it. It’s been growing in popularity in the UK too, although it’s still quite niche and very expensive!…

Monkey’s made himself very much at home here on the spaceship. He’s been here for over a year now and has developed close relationships with the whole team. He goes to Erik for play time and Leftwing Idiot for tummy rubs – he’s worked out that Trina will cave in first at dinner time and will let Claire carry him about.…

This evening I got a call from my brother-in-law King Russell and my three-and-a-half-year-old niece Bean, who had an urgent question for me:

“Do you need help choosing what to put in your bath?”

My instant reply, ‘Of course!’.

This is one of a few small new routines we’ve created to stay connected over the last year.…