Housemaid’s Knee

Most of us have heard of Tennis Elbow, though strangely, never once at Wimbledon. Tim and Boris and Steffi always went down with viruses and groin strains and the like, but never Tennis Elbow. I wonder why?

            Same goes for Athlete’s Foot. I didn’t hear anyone in Beijing blame their failure to ‘medal’ on a nasty bout of that.

            Housemaid’s Knee?  Can’t say I’ve ever been afflicted with that one although to be honest, it’s doubtful I’ve ever gone at the housework hard enough to put myself at risk.

            Probing a nearby GP in the name of research, I learned of more occupation-specific conditions. Did you know that there’s an ailment known as Policeman’s Heel? That Gamekeeper’s Thumb isn’t limited to just Gamekeepers? That you don’t need a diamond-patterned jersey to suffer from Golfer’s Elbow? That Golfer’s Elbow is different from Tennis Elbow?

Brewer’s Droop - there’s another one. It sounds a bit rude, but it’s nothing compared to the tender condition that’s attributed to Chimney Sweeps. Poor chaps.

            Who names these things? Worthy physicians in Victorian wood-panelled consulting rooms, or groups of people in pubs having a laugh? Anyhow, I’ve discovered a new one.

            If nobody minds, I’m going to call it “Museum-goer’s Leg”. And it is the curse of the holiday mum.

            My legs seem to know the instant I go over the door of a museum. They’re like animals who can sense when they’re on the way to the vet. It’s very mysterious.

            There’s no time delay; no hour or so of pain-free looking and learning, before the symptoms come crashing in.

Instant sore feet. Swiftly followed by an aching numbness that travels upwards to my knees, as though all of the blood has stopped circulating and is solidifying, throbbing, screaming to get out.

            The condition is usually eased by diverting to the café for coffee and a bun, then formulating a plan of where to go for an early lunch. Management thereafter involves fixing a time-limit for the rest of the visit. Half an hour is about right.

            Sometimes, though, even that is too long. The legs feel like they’re going to explode in a pulpy mess and the feet scream for mercy. When that happens -let’s call it the acute phase - proceeding directly to the gift shop can help, until the rest of the family’s ready to leave.

            This summer holiday, with the weather being how it was, we visited several museums. And I learned that it didn’t really matter what sort of trickery they threw at us in the name of education and entertainment, the attacks of Museum-goer’s Leg were still triggered within the first five minutes, every time. London’s Science Museum, for instance, offered an all-singing, all-dancing interactive spectacular exhibition designed to prove to our children that no matter how much they cared about the environment they were still all doomed, it was all their fault and there was nothing they could do about it. At least, from my chair over in the corner, that’s what it seemed like to me.  Afterwards I trudged in their wake up to the earthquake room and lurched onto the earthquake simulator, just to get something to hold on to.

            If Museum-goer’s Leg strikes even in hyper, buzzy environments like those, it ought to be ten times worse in the Natural History Museum with its endless glass cases filled with assorted stuffed critters, no?

No. It’s actually a bit better there, which is odd. Maybe it’s because of the wonderful high ceilings of the beautiful old building, that lift the spirits and ease the feet. Or maybe it’s because the stuffed critters don’t try to send any right-on messages apart from: ‘Excuse me? Can you get me out of here?’ Which, come to think of it, is pretty much what my legs were telling me, so perhaps that explains it.

            I don’t dislike museums. I just wish they didn’t hurt so much. I like what they do; those occasional Kodak moments when the children are fully engaged with something alien to me like fossils and I can sit back - in the café, usually, and feel like Parent of the Year. Curiosity - aside from what it did to the cat - is good. Museum-goer’s Leg is bad. Though it’s infinitely preferable to what the chimney sweep gets.