WEDNESDAY – 3 WEEKS TO CHRISTMAS DAY
The shopping list was under review as it was to be reconstructed.
The tradition of delicious succulent turkey baked to perfection was to be discarded along with the cranberry sauce, the “little cabbages”, the bread sauce and the Christmas pudding. Replaced by sumptuous crab claws and prawns in garlic butter, some Blackey ham for the non fish eater, an awesome dressed salad (as claimed by the creative daughter) followed by regal stuffed rack of lamb, seasonal vegetables, the roast potatoes which had survived the cull and a home made stock infused gravy. The pièce de résistance was to be flaming ice cream (aka Baked Alaska).
The “amazing dressed salad” was entrusted to the daughter returned from her travels who had left a fortune in Cork’s English Market, bringing with her pâtés, breads, exotic vegetables and fruit and what she claimed was a knock-out hot hot dressing – chimichurri – guaranteed to ignite the alternative Christmas fare.
A sharp frosty December 25th arrived. With the ‘First
Noel’ having been sung at midnight Mass, it was time to do homage to Bacchus. The regular Christmas morning visitors came and went, some having imbibed sufficient to ensure a basteless turkey. It was time to settle down to our alternative Christmas lunch. Seated around the festively arranged table, the upmarket crackers were the first attempt to set the jovial atmosphere. Alas, upmarket though they may have been, they still had the same cap gun bang, the same corny jokes, the coloured paper hat, the same “priceless” jewellery.
The starters were served and were absolutely delicious, the prawns and crab claws were to die for (words that might prove ominous) and the salad really was amazing with the addition to winter vegetables of pecans, cranberries and crumbled blue cheese. We always take a little break between courses and this Christmas was to be no different. Suddenly, I felt an inexplicable sleepiness and was persuaded to have a ‘lie down’. So I decamped to my cosy bed.
I was awoken by my husband, daughter and son “Mam, wake up” and “are you ok?”. To say the room was spinning around me is an understatement. “Seeing stars” does not come close to describing the aura that enveloped me. Colours of every hue, dimension and pattern were floating before my vision in a spectacular fluctuating, shifting, spinning, terrifying Catherine wheel. The kaleidoscopic bombardment was accompanied by a sickly sweet breath emanating from every corner of the room. I was barely aware of my loved ones as they tried to decipher my unnerving cries as I tried to catch the non-stop rainbow. Clinging to my daughter’s calming hands with my husband and son, we headed to the local health centre – I was shivering uncontrollably.
The doctor’s name was Gregory, I can only relate the following from the version told to me. Gregory’s requests to raise my right hand resulted in my raising both or neither. “Look to the left”, I looked to the right. “Hold up one finger”, all ten digits flung forward. “Hold both hands forward” encouraged – roly poly, roly poly – Aon, dó, trí.
Throughout apparently, I smiled idiotically being in recent days compared to the grinning Japanese girl in the Guinness advertisement. Finding nothing medically amiss, Dr. Gregory sent me home to sleep and to be watched over. (Didn’t he not know it wasn’t the night, the time for shepherds to keep their watch)
Arriving home, though still disorientated, I could not fail to notice the remains of the “alternative Christmas dinner”. The cremated roasted potatoes resembling lumps of therma coal were still in the oven tray. The rack of lamb had lost its regal crown and the flaming ice cream was a melted puddle.
St. Stephen’s Day, now labelled as “Post Mortem day” in our house, saw us gathered around the disarray of the festive table in an effort to ascertain what had happened. After a lengthy discussion and a minute history of what each of us had eaten the day before, it transpired that I was the only who had partaken of the amazing chimichurri dressing. The bottle was produced, the list of ingredients analysed and along with capsicum of varying degrees of heat, was an ingredient called Habanero. A quick call to Dr. Google and voilà, there it was, in rare cases “profuse sweating can be experienced, sometimes vomiting and hallucinations can be induced by eating the pepper”.
My health scare - I had been on “a trip”, mind you not one I had packed for. My altered state of consciousness induced not by the consumption of psychedelic drugs but by a stray ingredient bottled by Althea Wholesome Foods in remote Glenmacnass, Co. Wicklow. I think in hindsight, there were some escapee Magic Mushrooms.
A number of weeks later, I was overnighting with my Mam who was unwell at the time. At 5.30am the monitor beeped, Mam was experiencing breathing difficulties. Frantically I dialled the local health centre. Within a short time the medical team arrived headed by none other than Dr. Gregory who promptly asked “who is looking after this elderly lady?” as he looked at me with a scintillating glare. According to my sister, who had arrived by then, I raised my hand, though she cannot recall if it was my right or left.
Whereupon my Dr. Gregory seemed to be in a ferocious hurry for the paramedics to take my mother to the safekeeping of a hospital, he also wasn’t slow to suggest that my sister, not I, might accompany Mam in the ambulance.
Flash forward (sorry wrong word) three weeks later, I was in Cork Airport travelling alone to London. Lo and behold who should be in the opposite queue (priority of course) but Dr. Gregory. I lifted my hand to wave but thought better of it and said a silent prayer that my seat allocation should not be to his left or his right.