This weeks comment blog was supposed to be a celebration of Chester’s current vibrant cultural mood and the pressures of trying to document as much as possible of things that go on. However I didn’t get to write it due to crippling stomach pain requiring a 999 call. Under emergency doctor’s orders, although the pain had subsided a trip to A&E was required.

Wednesday evening at 7.52 accompanied by my next of kin I checked in and settled in the crowded waiting room. I began my observations, fully expecting a long night ahead. I remembered an episode of classic Casualty (1986) in which a patient complained at a 2 hour wait. How times change. The waiting room is patient and civilised, a strange oasis after a day spent mostly in crippling pain.

Some of the patients seem cheerful, laughing and joking, others have been numbed into silence. Some succumb to sleep , a few stare at their phones despite the limited signal in the building. Outside checking twitter, a woman sitting outside the new Same Day Emergency Care Facility (opened in May) is disappointed that I don’t have a light. Back inside there is a steady flow of new patients, ambulance staff, occasionally police and medical staff. What shift patterns do the staff work, I ask myself, with the possibility of interviewing staff at a later date flashing in my mind.

I pass the first hours using up my reading material, Private Eye offers a very funny spoof diary by Chester institution Gyles Brandreth. 15 minutes pass writing the new Lego signs for the market display, followed by a few book chapters. As the hours pass I get to know the names of the patients as they are called and then recalled. After 2 hours I am called to see a nurse who takes my details and blood pressure.

“I’ll be here til midnight ” says one patient optimistically at 10.20. A couple of others have to leave without being seen properly due to work commitments. Other random thoughts stroll through my head: That Doctor looks like Matt Smith.. a patient with the same name as a famous 1980s footballer, Nestle have brought Caramacs back! An hour later another nurse takes a blood sample and gives me a tube for a urine sample.

“Sharp scratch sorry love”.

Back in the waiting room, I read the vending machines, and then notice how all the leaflets of old have been replaced by QR codes. Following an awful Jennifer Lopez film, the BBC rolling news takes over on the 2 wall mounted TV screens. Joe Biden looks down on us all, as bleary eyed as everyone in the room is. At 25 minutes past midnight a nurse wheels out a tea trolley which is a huge boost to morale. “If anyone would like a a hot drink if you’d like to form a queue” she says smiling. How kind and amazing I think. After having not eaten anything at this point for well over 12 hours, it tastes like the nicest cup of tea I’ve ever had.

The next 2 hours somehow fly by, a bit more reading a bit more time spent guessing who will b next to be seen, a bit messaging friends who are still awake. We enter the Frank Sinatra wee small hours of the morning and I feel completely zoned out and at peace. A cleaner walks past accompanied by the comforting smell of bleach. Everything is clean and tidy and organised. As the night slowly rolls into morning the pace of new patients slows to a trickle. I feel a strange peace.

At 1.30 I am seen by the doctor, who carries out a detailed examination and analysis of my condition. Eventually he gives me some painkillers, prognosis, and books me in for a scan advising me to come back if the pain returns again. “Thank you for looking after me doctor” I say to him, he seems embarrassed but smiles back brightly. The wait time feels only vaguely important due to the quality of care I received.

Free in the cool night air, outside of the hospital where I was born, I feel a relief but also think of the world that never stops while most people are asleep.

Thank you to all the staff at the Hospital