I’ve written before about how my tics interfere with the way I walk and how they make every step unpredictable. Turning my ankle over is one of the most painful of them. This happens to most people every now and again, but for me it happens many times a day and means that I lurch about even more than normal.…

Ruth texted me earlier to ask if I wanted to join her and some mates for a drink tonight. The only thing that put me off was the journey. I wasn’t sure if I could face travelling across London, especially after last weekend.…

I’ve just got home from a great evening with Ruth. After what happened at the weekend I was a bit nervous about travelling alone. So it was with trepidation that I went down into the tube. But I needn’t have worried because the journey turned out to be a lovely conversation relay.…

Earlier on I was working at the nature garden. My job for the afternoon was to help the children finish a den they’ve been making out of willow. Leftwing Idiot was there helping. Most of the children who play regularly at the garden are familiar with me and my Tourettes.…

There was a large group of teenage boys behind me on the bus this morning. They started laughing at me as soon as they sat down, but I could hear one voice of dissent. Instead of laughing, he was quietly reasoning with his friends, saying things like, “I don’t see what’s funny”, “Imagine if it was your mum, or sister”, “You lot are being rude”, “It could be your family.”…

I was feeling a bit miserable on my way home this evening. Not for long though, because just outside the lair a handsome stranger beamed at me warmly and said, “I saw you in Catford the other day.”

This was about the extent of our exchange but his friendliness lifted my spirits.…

When I started writing this blog a year ago, I resolved to be honest but not to slip into self-pity. Tonight in this entry I’m going to tread that fine line – I’ve been feeling overwhelmingly upset today.

It was a conversation with an old woman on a bus that started it off.…

This morning I was enjoying a relaxing start to the day, when the doorbell rang:

Ring 1. It was a courier with a letter for Fat Sister. He looked flustered and awkward, as I jerked about. I signed for the letter and he went on his way.…

As I walked back from lunch, squawking and moving as strangely as ever, a man working nearby struck up a conversation with me. He didn’t mention Tourettes or seem to notice my odd behaviour – he was too busy flirting with me and asking for my number.…

While I was on a train this afternoon I started looking at Twitter on my phone. Out of interest I did a search for ‘Tourettes’ and found that someone had just tweeted about a woman shouting ‘Biscuit’ and ‘Happy Christmas’ on a train.…