I make no secret of the fact that I am the National Health Service’s biggest fan. Seriously, for all those that criticise it do you realise just where the hell we’d all be without it? Up Excrement River without an oar, that’s where!

The NHS saved my life in 2003. Literally! I was about one degree higher in body temperature away from shuffling off this mortal coil but the skill of doctors and nurses pulled me through. And that’s before I get to the bit about how they have looked after and treated my wife in the last few years when she has had both a heart attack and cancer.

In short, they’ve been bloody marvellous.

So, please, do yourself a favour, if you want to slate the NHS then don’t do it to me or you’re liable to get a lengthy diatribe in its defence.

I went a bit quiet last week and did very little in the way of actual writing. Now, there’s a perfectly good reason for this and it’s a bit of an old chestnut, I know, but I wasn’t very well.

Tuesday afternoon my face went numb and I was greatly alarmed gentle reader. I thought that perhaps the Bell’s Palsy was making a return or perhaps it was something a lot worse – you know what I’m talking about. Anyway, my fab-u-la-tastic wife thought that it warranted a trip to A&E to get it checked out and so off we went once more on that well-trodden road to Airedale Hospital.

I say well-trodden because in the last 10 to 12 years or so I have made more trips to A&E than any other person alive. So much so that I believe I should have my own private seat in the waiting room and some kind of loyalty card for the vending machines.

And yes, there have been times when I’ve had to wait an eon to see someone but I realise that its only because the poor staff there are absolutely snowed under. When we walked in on Tuesday I counted exactly 48 people, including myself, in the waiting area. I took a seat and we waited with them.

It took a full six hours before I was sat in front of a doctor, although I had been through triage and had my blood taken etc much earlier. After a discussion and examination with the doctor he concluded that the nerves in my face have been compressed by my CPAP mask at night and this was causing the numbness.

I breathed a sigh of relief but also felt like giving myself a jolly good kick in the pants for having the damn mask too tight in the first place. That was a week ago and I am still experiencing some numbness but nothing as bad as it was last Tuesday. To cut a long story short there was a fault with my mask that I hadn’t realised which has now been satisfactorily resolved.

But it did get me thinking over the Easter weekend just how many trips I have made to Airedale A&E department. Actually, its not called A&E anymore, is it? It’s just called “Emergency” now but I still call it A&E because I’m an old stick in the mud and I don’t like change when there’s no need for it.

Anyhoo, about those visits to Airedale A&E. There have been a great many. The first of which was in the Spring of 2013. I was chopping some fire wood and without going into too much detail I successfully managed to – bury the hatchet, as it were, into my right foot.

Ange hastened my to Airedale and I was seen quickly, stitched up, bandaged and on my way home again in no time at all. And I learned a valuable lesson that day which is this – don’t try chopping wood wearing only Crocs.

Since then I’ve gone and sat in that old familiar waiting room for things such as:

• Pneumonia
• Chest pains (twice)
• Bell’s Palsy
• Vertigo
• Violent stomach pain (which turned out to be constipation on an industrial scale)
• A bad knee
• A bad arm
• A bad back
• And a great and varied host of other minor offences

Sometimes it’s been a quick in and out and sometimes it’s been a more prolonged and drawn out experience. It just depends how busy they are on the day. Although, the pneumonia one led to me being put on a ward for the best part of a week whilst they pumped me full of nuclear strength antibiotics.

And the thing that has stood out the most for me in all that time is the tremendous patience and complete unflappability of the staff. From the first point of contact at the reception desk right through to the doctors, nurses, radiographers and everyone else.

I’ve had X-rays, MRIs, CT scans and had more blood taken than a black pudding factory and it’s always been done with the utmost care and the most remarkable professionalism. Never, I say again never, have I ever felt not in safe hands there.

So, now you see why I am such a champion of the NHS. They do an immeasurably difficult job with nowhere near enough funding and they do it with smiles on their faces and tenderness in their hearts.

As for the rest of last week, I spent all day Wednesday in bed catching up on all the lost sleep I’ve missed and Thursday I was as limp as a two-day old banana skin although I did manage to shuffle down to the chip shop at teatime although the walk back felt like I was trying to conquer Everest. I just barely roused myself on Friday to do a bit of catching up on my journal and some laundry but that was about it. As for the weekend it was pleasant (and chocolatey) enough but I still had less energy than Rip Van Winkle on his day off.

Monday was nice as I did a bit of canal boat steering which brought back some genuinely happy memories and proved that however crap my body is these days; I’ve still got it at the business end of a tiller!

Here’s hoping this week will prove to be far more productive and please join me in raising a glass to our glorious NHS. Long may it continue.