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It's 6.30am and I was awoken 20 minutes ago from the last of the light dozes that made up my night - light dozes broken by coughing, curtains being pulled, snoring, laughing, someone's unmannermoded device that plinks and blings at intervals, the occasional rustling of plastic bags and the muted din of all-night traffic from the overhead highway nearby.

FlowersThey were light dozes managed between turning over to relieve shoulders and hips almost numb at times from a very hard mattress and a neck stiff from strange angles forced on it by a no softer pillow. (My sleeping setup at home is straight out of the Princess and Pea.)

CorridorThe last time I was in hospital I was about 7 years old. I remember having to wear a Victorian-style bonnet (but in plastic) before my tonsillectomy,  and having to lie there feeling intensely self-conscious in it while a workman worked on a window outside and winked at me. I wriggled the bonnet off and got told off by a nurse for that and for pressing the buzzer for no reason but loneliness and boredom.
This is my first night ever in a hospital in the 25 years I've been in Japan. It's the local hospital just a stone's throw across the river from where we live in eastern Tokyo. Half the facilities on the hospital compound are a hospital, the rest an old people's home.

Urine collection pointI can chat with my partner, have a book, and my laptop, so am not bored. And no one making me wear a silly bonnet helps.

Pink is the only real c...