AS I think I’ve mentioned once or twice before, I'm beginning to feel like the invisible man.

And the feeling has never struck me more than at the weekend when I was choking to death and in urgent need of the Heimlich Manouvre – or abdominal thrust as it is known in modern medical circles.

There I was, having Sunday lunch with my wife and two of our sons, and, as is my habit, I was eating too fast. It might have been a piece of roast chicken, a roast potato, a chunk of Yorkshire pudding, a floret of broccoli, or a combination of them all that got wedged in my throat. Whatever it was I knew I was in trouble.

I’m quite proud to say I didn’t panic immediately but walked calmly to the fridge to pour a glass of orange juice to wash down the blockage. That only served to make matters worse because the orange washed back up and choked me more.

I suddenly realised I couldn’t breathe and wasn’t even able cry for help, although I admit to making the kind of gurgling noise a drain makes after you’ve taken a plunger to it.

I know logic suggests that I should have blundered back to the dining room table and gesticulated for first aid but, bizarrely, I was too embarrassed so I staggered out into the garden, got down on all fours, and repeatedly shoved my fingers into my throat.

I honestly thought I was going to die but, just as the dizziness started to set in, the blockage began to slowly descend and I finally managed to gasp some air. I rolled on my back in blessed relief and, as I did so, I glanced through the window to see that my three dining partners were still sitting at the table without a care in the world.

I should point out at this juncture that we have an open-plan dining room and kitchen so none of this had taken place behind closed doors. After a few minutes of recovery, I returned to the lunch-table, with my eyes streaming and, no doubt, bloodshot. No one said a word. They just carried on chatting about our forthcoming holiday plans.

A few days later, I was talking to my wife after getting home from work and I raised the subject of my near-death experience.

“I thought I was going to die at the weekend,” I told her. “I was choking on my Sunday lunch and nearly blacked out in the garden but no one noticed.”

“Oh, we saw you rolling around,” she replied. “We just assumed you’d eaten too quickly again and were choking.”

Maybe I should just die and have done with it.

THE THINGS THEY SAY

THANKS to Mike Wilson, of Darlington, for telling me about his Joe, when he was three, copying his mum and dad on the bathroom scales. He looked down and shouted: “Two feet six!”

ANDY Williams, of Skelton, in East Cleveland, remembered the time his three-year-old nephew Jamie was getting dressed when he was being looked after by his Grandad.

Jamie said something but his Grandad didn’t hear. “You’ll have to speak louder, Jamie. Your Grandad’s very deaf these days,” he said.

At the top of his voice, Jamie yelled: “OK Grandad – I said you’re very fat!”

I’M grateful to Philip Chisholm, of Redcar, who recalled a child returning to school after being poorly and informing his teacher: “ Miss, I’ve been covered in chicken balls.”

AND a final thank you to London-based newspaper editor Andrew Parkes, who tried taking his young daughter into a pub, only to be told: “We can’t go in here, we’re not a team.”

The little girl had misheard the rule that you had to be 18 to go in a pub.