I had an early start this morning and despite being bleary-eyed I was very happy.

Last night I slept over at Laura’s house. She’s one of my oldest and closest friends. We lived together while we were at college and have got to know each other very well over the years. We still see each other a lot but it’s been a while since we woke up and shared breakfast together.

I stayed at Laura’s because everyone who’d usually support me at night was away or busy. It’s a testament to the strength of our friendship that Laura and her husband, Drew, welcomed me warmly when I invited myself over at short notice. What makes this additionally remarkable is that Laura’s pregnant and they have an eight-month-old daughter, Ruby already. Adding another potential source of disruption to their sleep was an act of considerable kindness.

In the end neither Ruby nor I disturbed Laura in the night. Ruby was however raring to go at 6:00am. While Laura made us all breakfast I played with Ruby and read to her.

I could hear Laura giggling from the kitchen as I read a book about a duck, with added inappropriate ticced sound effects. They were inappropriate not because they were rude but because every time the duck was meant to say ‘Quack quack’, I’d go ‘Moo’ or ‘Woof’. While this may have been confusing for Ruby from a zoological point of view, it gave her a good early introduction to Tourettes, and it made Laura laugh a lot.