The sun was shining, the wind was cold, the crowds were good humoured...and a random woman tried to strangle me. I say strangle, I actually mean garrotte.
On a perfectly normal trip to Camden in search of suitable garb for a vampire prince (don't ask), we happened to be walking down the street as a rotund female American tourist happened to be walking past the other way. She had a rather weird handbag with a lot of overlapping metal hoops hanging from it, rather like fish scales. I remember noticing the sheer ugliness of the handbag and vaguely wondering why on earth anyone would buy something that looked like that as she walked past me. I went on walking and then I suddenly jerked backwards and couldn't breathe.
Apart from occasional extremely non-serious wheezing, easily relievable by my inhaler, I've never really been unable to breathe so it was a very odd sensation. The realisation that my inability to breathe was caused by my scarf was something of a relief. My scarf was wrapped so tightly round my neck that I couldn't get my finger between the scarf and my skin for a few long minutes (possibly just very long seconds). When I did, I started coughing and had to go and sit down and have something to drink so that I could swallow properly without wanting to retch.
Apart from occasional extremely non-serious wheezing, easily relievable by my inhaler, I've never really been unable to breathe so it was a very odd sensation. The realisation that my inability to breathe was caused by my scarf was something of a relief. My scarf was wrapped so tightly round my neck that I couldn't get my finger between the scarf and my skin for a few long minutes (possibly just very long seconds). When I did, I started coughing and had to go and sit down and have something to drink so that I could swallow properly without wanting to retch.
What we think in retrospect had happened was that the end of my scarf had got trapped in one of the loops of her bag (or possibly the strap of her bag). However surely she noticed an extra X stone of me in addition to usual weight of her handbag? The only reaction we got was a distant 'sorry' floating back over the crowd.
Both my brother and boyfriend say it was an accident (they say she hasn't earned her full fee - it was only payable on a completed assassination), but joking aside, I am left with a sore throat and am finding it hard to swallow.
Literally and metaphorically.