It’s late and I’m in bed. In the next room I can hear murmuring, gentle singing, occasional bickering and the unmistakable sound of wriggling. I can also hear Ruth’s tics. Ruth’s staying over tonight to do my support and she’s brought her nephew Adoni (aged 8 ) and her niece Shania (aged 11) with her. We’ve had a great night hanging out, watching films and wheelchair-dancing.

Yesterday I lay in bed and wrote about how sad I felt. Tonight there’s no room at the castle for anything but joy, generated by the kids’ energy and enthusiasm. I feel buoyed up the by their company.

A few moments ago Ruth tics rounded on the moon and she came out with a spontaneous ticced poem. Shania’s response, which I found moving, was ‘I wish I could just make up a poem like that. It takes me ages, but you just come up with poems in an instant.’

Leftwing Idiot has said similar things several times in the past but hearing it come spontaneously from a child was brilliant.

It also reminded me of something Leftwing Idiot said to Ruth the first time we talked to her about the idea of Touretteshero. He said that one of the things he’d like to see in the future was people copying tics, not because they were mocking them but because they thought they were cool and creative. The behaviour might be exactly the same but the motivation would be entirely different.

Just now I looked up and caught sight of the lamp-post. “Night-night lamp-post” I shouted, and Ruth’s tics immediately did the same. Then two smaller voices wished the lamp-post goodnight too. This made me smile and feel very calm.

Goodnight to you too.