The little girl has a cast on her arm wrapped in a bright pink bandage, but she’s not letting it stop her as she heads straight for the wall-mounted play station, her free hand making great use of the hammer on the xylophone as she plays away, oblivious to the grey faces around her.

I’m sitting in a hospital waiting room, like so many of you have done at different times in your lives, and will again no doubt. There’s an awful lot of sitting in waiting rooms as life goes on, sometimes for somebody you love and sometimes for yourself. It’s hard to know which is worse.

Nobody is talking, of course. Everyone is on their phones. That’s the way it is now, isn’t it? Looking for company online rather than from the person beside you, and who am I to judge? You’ll take solace wherever you can find it, especially on days like this.

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The staff rush past. They don’t make eye contact and I don’t blame them. If they catch your eye, they know there will be a question, and they’re already doing all they can, trying to keep every ball in the air with a pace that would challenge any circus juggler.

It’s an inner-city hospital and the skirting boards are scuffed, the automatic doors aren’t quite as automatic as they should be, and the décor wouldn’t win any prizes, but we’re grateful to be here. The nurses are wonderful and everybody is doing their very best for us.

I resist the urge to tidy the noticeboard. The notices are higgledy-piggledy, pinned at odd angles as they compete for attention. As the information channel plays to nobody, everyone looking down at their phones instead, the information literally passes over their heads.

One slide apologises for keeping us waiting. Yet sitting in a waiting room strikes me as a privilege of sorts. Who wants to be so unwell they’re rushed straight to the top of the queue? It’s not a place I want to be for sure – let us be well enough to wait.

And then there are the things people carry that we can’t see – fear, grief, hope – often the heaviest of all

People cough. So much coughing. Part of me wishes masks were back again and I wonder if any of us will ever entirely lose the worry those strange years gave us, when nobody knew quite what the outcome would be and every sniffle carried a question mark.

One woman passes carrying a portable oxygen tank in a backpack, another is wheeling a drip, her hospital gown flapping open as she goes. Clerical staff glide by laden with huge manila files – our lives contained inside them.

And then there are the things people carry that we can’t see – fear, grief, hope – often the heaviest of all.

I close my eyes for a few minutes. Our nights are fractured and I can nod off almost anywhere. The day is warm and I’m lulled by the gentle hum of machines and the swish of the doors as they open and close.

Music starts playing somewhere nearby, cheerful but not excessively so. I imagine the meetings and consultants it took to decide on that, not to mention the budget. I find myself tapping a foot, then it stops and I realise it isn’t the hospital music at all, it’s an elderly lady’s ringtone. Her eyes remain closed, her head on her chest, as it rings and rings. Eventually the woman beside her nudges her – kindness or exasperation? Who knows.

The information screen lights up once more.

Get up. Get out. Get active.

I look around at the walkers and wheelchairs and suspect that ship may have already sailed for many of the audience.

A name is called, an older man gathers his belongings and takes his daughter’s arm.

“Come on Dad, they’re waiting.”

He disappears through a door. Then another name is called. And another.

We wait. I nod off again.

A different phone rings, the little girl behind me continues to play the xylophone. Her pink bandage lighting up the room as she lifts her arm and strikes another note.