I’ve written many times about how Tourettes makes me rubbish at keeping secrets. I often give away what I’ve got people as gifts, and poker, I-spy, and hide-and-seek are not my strongest games.

This neurological pre-disposition can make the festive period unusually stressful.…

I woke up this morning and a chorus of Christmases started almost immediately:

“Merry Christmas, geranium.”
“Merry Christmas, festive zebra.”
“Merry Christmas, laser jet printer.”
“Merry Christmas, protective padding.”

Here at the castle I can hear Will and Lottie stirring next door.…

I’m feeling very festive – the presents are wrapped, the castle’s looking Christmassy and the fridge is full of food.

Will and Lottie are staying here over the next couple of days and they’re all settled in the support workers’ room.…

Across the world it’s been a year of dramatic change, from the UK referendum result to the pugnacious President-Elect in the USA.

In this era of uncertainty we need true leadership from our politicians, something that sadly seems all too scarce.…

A couple of days ago I received a lovely message on Facebook that really made me smile.

A woman named Ali got in touch to tell me that she’d been teaching sign language to her three-year old son Caleb and he’d been picking it up well until they got to the sign for ‘biscuit’.…

Yesterday afternoon I bought a Christmas tree.
Yesterday evening Innes decorated it.
This morning I started berating it.

Berating’s like decorating, but with insults. It was festive berating though:

“Tree, I’d offer you a mince pie, but you’re a tree.”
“Tree, you’re more garish than the geranium.”…

For the last two years we’ve been bringing Backstage In Biscuit Land to theatres around the world. In that time we’ve welcomed a great many people into the surreal world that it creates. It’s been enjoyed by adults and children alike, including a whole under elevens dance troupe.…

We’re seven days into December and it’s hard to escape the festive preparations, with emotive TV adverts, recipes for mince pies at every turn, and Christmas songs piped relentlessly into shops and radios across the country.

True to form my tics have absorbed all this input, mashed it about a bit and released it back into the world in the form of involuntary song.…

Every year we ask an illustrator whose work we love, to create an image for our Christmas card. If they’re up for it we send them a shortlist of festive tics and let them choose the one they like best. After that, it’s over to them and we use whatever fantastic artwork they create.…

When I was twelve I threw a basketball into my PE teacher’s face. The whole class had been told not to touch the balls, but to my horror I did just that: I picked up the ball and hurled it hard into his face.…