I spend a fair bit of time involuntarily chatting to trees, mainly the those outside my bedroom window who, along with the lamp-post, the TV aerial and the moon, get a lot of attention from my tics. Today though they chatted to a different tree, an indoor tree, and a tree in a theatre – and to be more precise – a tree with a man in it performing to an enthralled audience.…

This’ll be brief – it’s late and I’ve only just got home. I need to have some dinner before heading to bed but I wanted to write down my first thoughts about the evening I’ve just had before they fade.

Over the first five years of Touretteshero I’ve come to appreciate the spontaneity and creativity that Tourettes adds to my life.…

Today was our last day at work before Christmas so we had a party for the children. There was ‘Crimbo-limbo’, an amazing festive feast, music and lots of games. There was even an incredible Grotto. But there was one thing missing – Father Christmas.…

I’m sitting on my bed to write this post. To my right I can see the garden bathed in wintry sun. To my left is my wheelchair with the remnants of the fake snow from our Christmas video-shoot last month still clinging to its upholstery.…

On Friday, Bunny, Fran, Jolie and I saw an incredible piece of theatre, Hopelessly Devoted, at the Roundhouse in Camden. The play, written by Kate Tempest, is moving, funny and thought-provoking. The characters are brilliantly drawn and the performances totally absorbing – I’m so glad I saw it.…

I have a long Word document in which I write this blog. I often make notes for future posts and move ideas and dates about in it. For the last week the words 80-Year-Old Stella have been sitting there in bold type waiting for me to find the time to write the post.…

The other night I had the telly on while I was working. I was paying just enough attention to know that what was rumbling on in the background was an episode of Family Guy.

Somehow I managed to notice that near the end of the episode (which it turns out was called Quagmire’s Baby) there was a brief, funny, disability-related joke that really made me laugh.…

I’ve just had a ‘ticcing fit’ on a train. Leftwing Idiot held my head and the feeling of my cheek pressed against his palm was reassuring so that despite the fit I could let my eyes take in the countryside whizzed past outside.…

Last night Will and I went to see Chris Thorpe’s acclaimed show Confirmation at the Battersea Arts Centre. It was amazing and very thought-provoking, and I urge you to go and see it if you can.

Besides the show there was something else exceptional about our evening – when we arrived, the cab driver took the idea of door-to-door service completely literally.…

As I mentioned in my post the other day there’s no doubt it’s now autumn, but for this post I’m scrolling back six months from October, to April – April 12th, to be precise. It’s a date that’s sharply etched on my memory, partly because something amazing happened on that day, and partly because it was a day for which we’d been preparing for a very long time

It was the day of ‘We Forgot The Lot’, when over three hundred people with and without Tourettes came together to take over and transform Tate Britain.…