I’ve written lots of times about the difficulty of keeping secrets when you’ve got Tourettes. Two such occasions were when my friend Laura told me she was pregnant with each of her children before she’d shared the news more widely.

Both times Laura told me her news in person, over dinner. Although we see each other pretty regularly, it’s unusual nowadays for us to meet without her two brilliant babies – Ruby and Leo. But the two of us have arranged to do just this next week.

In my mind though, meeting up with Laura on her own has become strongly associated with her announcing big baby news. So much so that when I was with our friend Emma last week I kept worrying that my tics would give away Laura’s secret, but then remembering she wasn’t actually pregnant!

I explained all this to Laura on the phone this afternoon. It made her laugh, but she made it very clear that there’d be no more big announcements anytime soon. We shall see.