The picket was a little smaller, the noise levels a little bit lower - but the message remained the same.
For Liverpool's striking nurses, this battle is draining and depressing. They didn't want to walk out on strike for the first time in December and they absolutely do not want to be out again today - more than six weeks later.
While that first picket line outside the Royal Liverpool Hospital at the end of the year was all about noise, colour and energy, today's more modest showing was all about defiance against an increasingly hostile government.
