A couple of days ago I had a conversation with a child at work that’s stuck in my mind. He was playing on a tyre-swing and called out to ask if I could push him.

I confidently said I could and crawled over to help him.…

Last night we had our first barbecue at the castle. King Russell’s been desperate to have one here since I first moved in. Tonight he cooked for Fat Sister, Poppy, our friend Nic and me. After we’d eaten we sat outside in the dusk chatting.…

Out of the blue this afternoon a new collection of sung tics turned up, and they’ve been coming in waves since then. Just when I think my brain’s moved on they start rolling out all over again, to the inspirational tune ‘You Raise Me Up’.…

This afternoon we had some high profile visitors at work, a group of people from BBC Children in Need who help fund our go kart project. They came to meet the young people and see the work they help us do.…

During a ‘ticcing fit’ my body often contorts and gets stuck in strange positions. Over the last few weeks a new tic has snuck in which involves my jaw opening as wide as it’ll go. It’s painful and difficult to deal with, and though it might look a bit comical, when the muscles are extended and tense it hurts right along my jaw line and into my ear and neck.…

There are a few words I find inexplicably funny, like ‘penguins’, ‘sand’ and more recently ‘salad.’ They’re all words I’ve started to find hilarious after I’ve taken my emergency medication for particularly bad ‘ticcing fits’. But my amusement doesn’t wear off with the drug, and whenever I hear or say these words again, I laugh uncontrollably.…

A blue sky suddenly turned stormy this afternoon. As I headed home from work in the cab with Fran there was a violent hailstorm. This made me and my tics overreact massively, which culminated with me sticking my finger up at the window shouting, “Swear at every hailstone!”…

Back in February Poppy gave Leftwing Idiot a giant heart-shaped plastic box full of love hearts as a Valentine’s gift. To her obvious surprise he liked them, and we’ve all been slowly making our way through them ever since.

The other day I noticed my tics were substituting their own special messages for the ones on the hearts, so as an experiment this afternoon we cracked open a packet and let my tics do the talking.…

Two years ago this week two important things happened that have had a big impact on my life.

The first was finding out about a government scheme called Access to Work which provides support to disabled people at work.

The second, which has cast a shadow of dread over every aspect of my life and the lives of millions of others, was the change of government.…

My flatmate Poppy is just coming to the end of her degree in costume design.

She’s in the final few weeks of her course and has been busy making some amazing outfits. As a result the castle has been awash with dressmaking pins.…