The expression usually goes ‘Your dinner’s in the dog’. But that wasn’t the case tonight though when the dog was on me, the dinner was on the floor, and Olive? Olive was struggling to decide which crisis to deal with first.…

At the start of a ‘ticcing fit’ I usually make a repetitive noise that sounds like the word, ‘How’.

At the weekend, while I was in Northern Ireland with the Backstage In Biscuit Land crew, I started having a fit. Chopin and Leftwing Idiot came to help me, but as well as keeping me safe they decided to sing songs that started with the word ‘how’.…

The last few nights have felt a bit like time-travel for me, but it’s a sort of time-travel that I’m not particularly excited about.

Until four years ago I used to tic in my sleep. According to Fat Sister and a number of my friends, sleeping tics were very similar to those I had during the day, but gentler.…

For anyone with uncontrollable movements in their arms, soup isn’t usually the best choice on the menu, and although my bowl was full of chunks of bread to help keep it under control, I still managed to make a mess.

The reason: a recent memory from our last night in Edinburgh.…

Thanks to Poppy at one end and Chopin at the other, Leftwing Idiot and I have made it safely to Edinburgh. Leaving a scorching London this morning we were very soon reminded that it’s much colder up north.

We’ve settled into the flat, our home for the next week or so, and we’ve been taking the opportunity to have a look around.…

Sometimes my tics suddenly pluck a word out of obscurity and through tone, pronunciation, and obsessive repetition, turn it into something surreal.

Today, “mottled” was in for this treatment.

It’s not a word I’ve ever given much thought to, let alone said.…

King Russell has a longstanding obsession with zombies. He’s got zombie films, zombie books, zombie t-shirts and a regularly updated zombie plan.

This all makes me worry that if he sees one of my latest ‘ticcing fit’ moves he might think he’s got a zombie sister in law as well.…

Several years ago I started taking a muscle-relaxant medication called Baclofen and from the very beginning I noticed that I needed to wee more frequently and urgently. My doctors didn’t seem surprised by this and apparently it’s not an uncommon side-effect.…

The tent was incredibly hot when I woke up and although it was early I could feel the heat of the sun through the synthetic fabric. I opened the flaps to let in a much-needed breeze and the daylight flooded in too.…

Today started earlier than I’d have liked. It was 4:00am when I woke up having a ‘ticcing fit’. I was face down, in a sleeping bag, unable to move or make much noise. All I could manage was a weird little bark and I was fairly sure this wouldn’t be enough to wake Lottie, but fortunately after a few minutes she came to my rescue.…