The Day had arrived at last. I was to see the consultant at Warrington hospital on Tuesday 29th April at 3.50 p.m. This was the 4th appointment I'd been given. The first was to have been the 8th but that was changed to the 15th followed by a change to the 29th at 3.15 which was subsequently changed to 3.50. Still, here it was, Tuesday the 29th, and it was all systems go.

Parking is well nigh impossible at the hospital between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. even though there are 2 big car parks in the grounds and other little nooks and crannies round the buildings, all Pay and Display it goes without saying. To save me the hassle of trying to park within walking distance my daughter finished work at 2 p.m. to take me. She had to be...

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I'm lying in my bed. It's a lovely Summer evening and the curtains in my room don't block out the light. I can hear children's voices as they play in the fields behind our house and I don't want to be in bed but, oh, I've played outside all day and now I'm bathed, comfortable and very sleepy. I am 4 years old.

I can hear music. It's my father playing the piano in our front room and he's playing Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I listen to the lilting jazz concerto with its undertones of the varied ethnic diversity of 20th century New York. I love the music, I love my dad, I love my home. Tears of contentment and happiness form in the corners of my closing eyes.

I wipe away the tears and open my eyes. For a...

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My 5 year old dishwasher is poorly. It's not dead yet, it's still showing numbers and symbols in its little display window, but it won't program. It won't do anything.

I was just about to go to bed, last night, when I found out. The dishwasher was loaded up with 2 days pots, pans and cutlery. We generally use it every other day as there's only 3 of us, me, my daughter and my granddaughter. We normally put it on when we go to bed, too, so everything's clean for morning. Anyway, I switched it on and all its symbols came on at once. I couldn't do anything with it.

Daughter and I got the manual out of the top of the "mugs and dishes" cupboard. There's a small section saying "If your appliance doesn't...

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The NHS has many failings but I cannot fault the diagnostic and medical treatment I had in Warrington Hospital. The only trouble was a complete lack of dignity.

As soon as I recovered from "the squits" they decided to do an ultrasound scan of my heart. This was while ward A7 was still where B17 should be so it was a case of a long trek, by wheelchair, round the corridors full of staff and visitors while clad in my dressing gown and slippers and with an oxygen cylinder shoved down the back of my chair. I was pushed by 2 auxiliary nurses who were deep in conversation about a colleague and I began to know how a toddler feels when being transported by a chattering parent. Once at Ultrasound I was parked outside in...

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I was admitted to ward B17. This was fine except that ward B17 was, in fact, acting base for ward A7 which was having to be deep-cleaned due to scandalous amounts of muck detected there the week earlier.

I was in a bay with 5 other women. Mrs Bhatti had gone into hospital in September to have her gall-bladder removed. Since then every part of her body seemed to have been attacked, in sequence, and she had never gone home. Being Hindu and vegetarian she had a bit of a problem with the food but as she had very little appetite anyway it didn't seem to matter very much.

Edith sat in one of those electronic beds all day, wired at every orifice. She didn't say much but every visiting time about a dozen people crowded...

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