As a child my Gran taught me a number of prayers. I became obsessed with them and had to repeat them all perfectly every night in order to feel safe.

As I hit my teens I was able to reason myself out of this, but the prayers are clearly still entrenched in my memory because today, totally out of the blue, I recited the Lord’s Prayer.…

I wrote last month about the sickly state of my geranium. I’d almost given up hope that it would survive from the blight that killed its neighbour, the pepper plant.

But almost a month on, there’s reason for optimism. The cutting I took is growing – slowly, but definitely growing.…

Something shocking has occurred.

My geranium is very ill – it may even be dying.

This has happened completely unexpectedly. A week ago both the geranium and the pepper plant that sits next to it were thriving.

Then they suddenly started to wilt.…

A couple of nights ago I got a text from my best mate Laura that made me feel hopeful for the world – even though there’s so much to feel miserable about.

With her permission here’s Laura’s text about a conversation with her daughter Ruby, in full:

“So in tonight’s bedtime discussion, Ruby was very concerned about how children who are wheelchair users use a park, particularly a slide.…

It’s American Independence Day today and it’s strangely appropriate that I’ve had my personal budget review this morning. My personal budget is the amount of money I get from my Local Authority Social Work team to pay for the support I need at home – and it‘s essential to my independence.…

Proud parents often share photos of their adorable offspring achieving significant milestones.

Earlier today Leftwing Idiot sent me a photo of his beautiful baby geranium that’s just had its first flowers.

Baby G’s the first to grow from seed from Leftwing Idiot’s original plant, and my tics marked the occasion in their usual style:

“Baby geranium, do you want some custard?”…

Fran and I have spent the day de-mudding everything after one of the muckiest Glastonburys on record.

It was my wheelchairs that needed the most attention, with my all-terrain chair almost a solid block of mud. I was anxious to get both of them clean and dry quickly so that none of the delicate parts got damaged.…

This morning we got off to an early start – well early for a festival! At 10am a car arrived to pick Captain Hotknives and me up for our lunchtime performance on the Glade Stage. I was very glad not to have to traipse through the mud to get there.…

During the night the rain battered the tent so hard that several times I felt a fine mist on my skin. But by the time I was properly awake the rain had cleared. I pulled myself out into the grey morning and sat and watched Glastonbury get going.…

I woke suddenly at 5.15 this morning and it wasn’t from the rain on the tent or the noise of Festival revellers outside. It was a text from Fat Sister, who’s joining us at Glastonbury later today. Her text said simply: “It’s all fucked!”…