When I wrote about the cartoon star while I was getting ready to move out of Leftwing Idiot’s flat a couple of months ago, I wondered about the ticcing relationships I was likely to develop at the castle.

True to form, Tourettes has developed a particular fascination with two things visible from my bedroom window. The first of which is a lamp-post I’m often rude to it as I settle down to sleep:

“Fuck off lamp-post, who said you could stand there?”

The second is a tree. It’s featured in lots of tics over the last few weeks. The following is a selection from the early hours of this morning. These weren’t a stream of related tics, nor were they conscious thoughts. It was more like a scattering of statements that flew out during an hour-long ‘ticcing fit’.

“The bashing branches of a boring sycamore on a night in December give way to a fairytale universe in January.”

“I feel sorry for the tree when its branches bash itself.”

“The tree isn’t waving at you, it’s drowning.”

“The tree spends all day moving but never gets anywhere.”

“Shambolic tree, sometimes I think you symbolise me and sometimes I think you’re just a tree.”

Clearly some part of me identifies with the tree outside my window. It’s just one of the many strange ideas that surface as tics in the middle of the night.