Aparantly, I'm allergic to parsnips.

****ing parsnips? Who's allergic to bloody parsnips?

Anyway, I sat down to Christmas dinner with my family, nice turkey, ham all the trimings, among which were parsnips. I'd never tried them before but seeing as it was Christmas, decided to give them a go, and they weren't half bad - kinda sweet but alright.

So that was fine, finished off my dinner helped with the cleaning up and slowly began to feel like there was something in my throat. I tried coughing it up and then eating some bread to try and force it down but it was gradualy getting worse, so much so that it pushing against my windpipe and I began to have trouble breathing. This was where things got sketchy, I remember feeling light-headed on the verge of passing out, when my dad decided to drive me to the hospital.

In fairness to the poor people working in Tallaght hospital on Christmas Day, they saw me right away and gave me an oxygen mask then a steroid and anti-histamine injection which slowly brought the swelling down. They kept me in for a further couple of hours observation and send me on my merry way at 9pm - in plenty of time to go home and watch everyone get drunk while I was forced to sit at miss out because on the medication. Still, I suppose it could have been much worse.

So the moral of the story? Trying new things will probably kill you, or at least leave you with a bizarre allergy.

Anyone got any Christmas disasters?