Christmas Al Forno

Catherine Hislop

For two weeks at least I had been shopping, baking and preparing for a real family Christmas. There would be ten of us, my parents, my husbands parents, our son and daughter. To complete the party we had invited Joe and Una, our neighbours.

Joe and Una were having great difficulty coping with the onset of Alzheimers disease. Una had recently caused quite a stir in the local fishmongers by telling him his fish were flat because his cat sat on them. Joe was known to venture out for the morning paper wearing his pyjamas and his favourite cap.

Christmas Day dawned and our guests arrived on time and suitably dressed. Id turned out the turkey to cool on the kitchen drainer and decided to join my guests for a pre-lunch drink big mistake.

My two cats were sniffing madly at the kitchen door so I asked my son to put them out and thought no more about it.

Eventually I decided to start serving the meal and set off for the kitchen. The turkey had GONE. I hunted high and low: the washing machine, the microwave, cupboards and rubbish bin no turkey!

The only person to leave the room I thought was my son but when I asked him he said Una had volunteered to let the cats out. Alarm bells were going off in my head BIG time. I took Una aside and asked her where the cats were outside with their dinner. I ran to the outside door but too late the cats were happily tunnelling through my turkey.

We now refer to that disaster as our Italian Christmas, as we dined on lasagne and various pastas.

Sadly shortly after that Christmas Una and Joe were taken into care as they could no longer care for themselves. I visit them regularly and Una goes out of her way to tell all and sundry what a lovely person I am. After all who else would serve their cats turkey for Christmas?

Ignorance is bliss!