No sympathy for my knee

Halfway through our holiday in early July my knee started aching and swelled up. For days I couldn't find a comfortable way to sit and although walking seemed to help I was sometimes reduced to a hobble, especially when negotiating stiles.

Three months later the ache has still not entirely vanished, though it is much less than it was. I am not really in pain, but I notice the ache every morning when I wake up and cannot walk without a faint twinge of minor discomfort. I have been measuring my improvement by how far I can kneel down and sit back on my heels without pain. It's only this week that I have been able to get my backside far enough down to touch my heel, though that is accompanied by facial grimaces and monkey impersonations (oo-oo-oo-a-a).

I have been looking forward to the moment, just before I recover completely, of showing my family what progress I have made and them saying to me, "Oh you poor thing, we didn't realise you were still suffering after all these weeks. We assumed you had fully recovered long ago. How brave you are, keeping quiet in the face of constant physical discomfort."

Last night, in straining to kneel by the DVD player, I decided the time was ripe to play out this scenario with my daughter. "You remember the problem I had with my knee when we were on holiday?" I began. "No," she replied, "that must have been after I'd left." She is quite right. She wasn't present for the second half of the holiday. She hadn't even noticed my limping around the supermarket for a few weeks on our return.

I suspect I will get equally little sympathy from the rest of my family. All those weeks of stoic suffering for nothing, eh? C'est la vie.