I have two regular agency carers who help me out at home, each doing different days of the week. One of them has just started a university course in Health and Social Care and so can’t always come, and the other isn’t very well at the moment.…

But this time with a Teapot and the Forest of Dean…

Yesterday I wrote about the flood of dolphin-tics that came out during a ‘ticcing fit’ I had early in the morning. A very similar thing happened later in the day when Poppy was with me, except this time it came out as a song.…

Four months ago I wrote about Poppy waking me up in the early hours of the morning to talk about penguins.

Actually, my tics had said Poppy did that, straight after I’d had a long ‘ticcing fit’, and they followed on with a whole stream of penguin-related tics.…

In a few weeks time I’m going to Shambala Festival – a brilliant, creative, music festival that takes place near Market Harborough. I went last year and had a fantastic time. This year looks set to be great too, with many of my favourite people already going or planning to go.…

When I woke up yesterday morning my tics, as usual, woke up too. But unusually I couldn’t hear them – I’d pretty much completely lost my voice.

“Biscuits” and “Hedgehogs” came out as strangled squeaks and completing a sentence was almost impossible.…

It’s Saturday morning (although only just). I’m lying awake a little after midnight and I’m surrounded by much more noise than normal. There’s rain relentlessly beating down outside and I can hear the high-pitched squeal of water sloshing over gutters. The rhythmic sound of the rain is punctuated periodically by groans of thunder.…

Five days ago, as he was leaving for a month in Edinburgh, Leftwing Idiot entrusted me with his precious plant, my former nemesis – the geranium.

He was visibly nervous about leaving it in my care and he’s already sent me three emails asking how it’s doing.…

It’s Poppy’s birthday in a couple of days so Zoë and I have planned a surprise. We’ve made her a spectacular and gaudy cake.

Poppy’s a costume designer and has spent a lot of time recently hand-carving some foam into a pair of breasts for a costume for Cassetteboy.…

Leftwing Idiot popped over this evening to say a final goodbye before he goes to Edinburgh for a month, and he didn’t come alone. With him was my old nemesis, the geranium.

Since its arrival in his flat over two years ago my tics have hit it with a barrage of insults and abuse.…

Over the last few months the organisation I work for has been gearing up for the Ruby Do – a big, accessible, family event celebrating creativity, inclusion and forty years of providing adventurous play opportunities for local children.

All week I’d been obsessively checking the weather forecast, hoping for a beaming sun symbol, but instead I was greeted with icons for thunderstorms and rain.…