PA Photos
While we were shooting the 'Free Spirit' story in the November issue of Easy Living, we experienced that frustrating August weather pattern where one second it was sunny and the next it was raining. Our two-day shoot was on location at a lovely Arts and Crafts house in Brentford, a stone's throw from Heathrow airport. I had previously produced a fashion story for Easy Living there and decided to return as there was a pretty fairground caravan at the bottom of the rambling garden.
Deciding to err on the side of caution, I opted for riding boots on the second day of our photo shoot. They are rubber soled and canvas to the knee - a spontaneous purchase in Milan, but very useful. Just before we finished I was standing in tall grass and felt a terrific sting and then another. Pulling my boots off failed to reveal the culprit and I assumed I'd been stung by a wasp from a nest I hadn't noticed nearby. Just above my ankle there were two tiny pinpricks. The stings were painful but nothing too bad and after a Piriton and some antihisthamine cream I forgot about them.
Waking in the middle of the night the stings were just as painful and throbbing and I started to wonder if indeed they were wasp stings. The following day I flew to see friends in Boston. On landing, I noticed that the area near my ankle looked swollen, which I attributed to the flight. However, as the week wore on, the patch got more inflamed and very, very itchy. It crossed my mind to see a doctor but, having found a cure for the itching, by midweek the redness had started to subside.
Meanwhile I was desperately trying to work out what had got me - this was no wasp. I started to google scorpions in south-east England (yes, they exist). Back in the UK a few weeks later and wearing the same boots on a different �photo shoot, my friend and photographer, Rick Truscott, admired the boots and I mentioned the stings. His immediate response was that I had been bitten by an adder (he grew up in Cornwall, snake country).
He claimed the needle-sharp fangs could easily penetrate the canvas and one went in before the other fang could get purchase. On Googling adder bites I concluded that it had almost certainly been one. The wound site matched photos on the internet and I found two puncture marks on my boot the same width as the two holes in my leg. And yes, adders do exist in Greater London.
I would have probably died on the spot (being a complete hypochondriac) had I known at the time, rushed to A&E and maybe cancelled my trip to the States. Heaven knows how little Harrison (the adorable child model in our story) escaped serious injury - running barefoot in the garden for two days. Ignorance is bliss is all I can say.
Add your comment
Source: http://www.easyliving.co.uk/blog/fashion/snakes-in-the-grass
No comments:
Post a Comment