I’ve lived at the castle for nine years. It’s on the ground floor and is accessible in most ways. The only area that hasn’t worked very well is the bathroom, but at long last this is about to change!

Back in 2016, my occupational therapist (OT) said that the bathroom wasn’t as safe or accessible for me as it should be, so she recommended turning it into a wet room, with the help of a Disabled Facilities Grant.…

I was chatting earlier with a friend who’s having a tough time, and it got me thinking about affirmations, by which I mean positive statements that you say out loud to help overcome negative thoughts.

I looked some up, and then my tics immediately responded with their own suggestions.…

Two years ago I reluctantly accepted my Occupational Therapist’s suggestion that I should start using a profiling (hospital-style) bed in order to help manage my pain. I was resistant to the idea because it was a single bed, and weirdly this felt like going backwards – but I gave it a try and it was a revelation!

Regular guest contributor Serena is here with important insights into her experiences of life seven months into the global pandemic.

As I sit at my dining-room table writing this post, the impending misery of a potential second lockdown swirls around in my head.…

I’ve been living at the castle for almost ten years! But, surprisingly, moving home was a lot less dramatic than some of the other changes that were going on in my life back then.

My tics had been affecting my mobility for several years and a month after moving in I got my first wheelchair.…

It’s been a rainy, grey day in London, but my afternoon got brighter when my three-year old niece Bean popped in with King Russell for a quick play in the garden on the way home from nursery.

Because her mum’s a hospital doctor and I’m in the shielding group when it comes to COVID 19, we’ve had to be careful about how much we see each other.…

At the start of lockdown I was sent a short story about the experience of growing up with a parent with Tourettes by a young writer called Yaska Sahara. I found the piece incredibly moving and it was a perspective that I hadn’t encountered before so I reached out to Yaska asking if she’d be up for writing a guest post about her family’s experiences.…

At the weekend I met my sister and my niece Bean at a playground we haven’t visited since Bean was tiny. It was lovely to be back in a park playing together. I was wearing a mask and being careful to keep my distance from my sister, Bean and from other families as well.…

Almost exactly six months ago I created a story for my three-year-old niece Bean about her mum’s job as a doctor, to explain the coronavirus pandemic and what it would mean for our family.

As infection rates increase again, and with my sister due to start a new job next month that involves an increase in overnight and on-call hours, I’ve updated the story to help explain to Bean what’s happening, and what to expect.…

It’s the beginning of a new academic year and for students starting back or returning to university or college, COVID-19 makes this a start like no other. In this guest post, regular contributor and recent graduate Serena shares what she wished she’d known when starting university as a disabled student.…