For months I’ve been puzzling over my personal budget. This is the money I get each month from Social Services to pay for the support I need to meet my basic care needs. The amount’s based on an assessment and has to be spent as agreed in my support plan.…

I’ve just re-visited a post I wrote last September, shortly after receiving the first copies of my book – Welcome to Biscuit Land. Leftwing Idiot had suggested I should write a message to myself in the front of my own copy and that it should be something I could go back to ‘on days when things feel tough.’…

Yesterday morning Fran and I said a ceremonial goodbye to the toothbrush she keeps at the castle. It was the only red one in the pot of 8 brushes, mine and one for each of my regular night-time support workers. I’d pestered Fran into getting a red one to brighten up all the other green and blue ones.…

The other night Zoë and I were hanging out together at the castle. We had a film on in the background while we worked on our computers. All of a sudden my tics intensified and I clenched my fists, flapped my arms, and squealed shrilly.…

Today’s the start of Tourette Syndrome Awareness month. Some people might question why Tourettes needs a whole month of awareness. After all it’s a condition that most people have heard of, it’s frequently mentioned on TV, in films, by celebrities, and on social media sites, and I imagine it regularly crops up in casual conversations between friends.…

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of talking to an American journalist with an incredible name. Lisa Collier Cool writes for Yahoo! Health and her article about me and Tourettes went up yesterday. You can read it here.…

I’m writing in the last half hour of Sunday, 12th May 2013. So far today I’ve not had a single ‘ticcing fit’. My fit-recording sheet is beautifully blank, something that hasn’t happened since 21st October 2011.

Since that day I’ve had a fit (usually several, sometimes more than twenty) every single day.…

I’ve written loads of posts about how I overreact when I feel any heightened emotion, whether it’s happiness, sadness, frustration or excitement. A while ago I developed an ‘overreacting plan’ to help guide me and my support workers through these difficult moments.…

A couple of nights ago I started singing a new song so sweetly it might almost have been described as saccharine – but the ticced lyrics were anything but.

“I’m having sex with animals again,
I’m having sex with animals again,
I’m having sex with animals again,
And they all like it hard in the face.”…

It’s over two years since I first wrote about the strange tics that only emerge when I’m in pain. I described then how instead of saying ‘Ouch’ I’d tic “Mystery.” I had no explanation for this then and I still haven’t now.…