Quiet night at A&E

Lately, we've kept hearing on the news about how A&E is being overwhelmed with 'nuisance patients' who ought to just Man up and wait till their surgery is open in 3 days' time...

I passed Stroud General Hospital's A&E tonight, Saturday, about 11.15 pm, and it all looked rather quiet. Small county hospitals are definitely the best place to go if you have an Accident or Emergency. Gloucester Royal is quite a different matter. The only way to get seen and helped in their A&E in, say, less than four hours, is to arrive by ambulance.

The vehicle you might just see in this image is in fact a car. I heard it roaring up the hill, but did not manage to get the light trails. Meh! But I liked the blue blinds in the hospital, have always wanted to get a shot of them. Tonight, as Rod S said, is the night.

I was coming home from an excellent poetry gig at the Stroud Valleys ArtSpace at the time of this photo-opp. It had been a weirdly busy day: morning spent reading, then cooking for a BBQ. Temperature about 3o degrees in the garden! CleanSteve suggested a village trip, so we went to Frampton-on-Severn, and I found a really old-fashioned jumble sale (the kind where everything is 20p, and people sharpen their elbows the night before). I braved the scrimmage, and got an armload of clothes and toys. Then we went on to a riverside pub, then more looking for dragonflies and swallows for Steve to blip, and by this time I'd missed my friend's "Festival of Death" at the Sub rooms in Stroud.

Back home. I got changed then went to the school BBQ, with the rice salad I'd made earlier. It was a lovely leaving do for a much-loved member of staff, but most people left about 7, when small rain began. I went home again with the uneaten rice salad, then out to the gig in town.

Tomorrow I intend to stay at home.