The ticking clock while you sit in the waiting room, the completed last exam where you wonder whether you did enough or perhaps that text you send and the nail biting moments between it being delivered, read and the three dots indicating that they may be replying.

Perhaps, however, it’s a twinge, or a hitherto unnoticed, engorged cluster of cells that sparks your attention. The trip to the hospital and a needle siphoning deep red life plunges you into private despair as your blood is placed in a vial in a laboratory awaiting a positive or negative diagnosis.

The Advent Discussion Group, led by Rev Azariah France-Williams, will gather on three Wednesdays in December – 4th, 11th, and 18th – to consider an aspect of waiting each week. No booking is required and all are welcome to reflect on the significance of waiting at the Mina Hogan room, between 10.30am and noon, in St Mary’s Parish Hall, Langham Road.