One never imagined that we would be so glad to find ourselves in an Italian autostrada service cafe. After five weeks and 7,000 km on the mainly northern European road, it was with a huge sense of relief that we returned to what may well be the last "french fry-free" zone in the developed world.
Not a hamburger sign in sight, not even the tiniest whiff of toxic deep fry in the air. On the contrary, this roadside cafe offered fresh fruit, fresh salads, fresh bread and genuine mineral water. The relief offered by fresh and simple food was such that even the solar eclipse outside (we were just outside Como, on the Italian border with Switzerland, and in a 90 per cent cover zone) was left to its own rather unspectacular devices.
Years ago, when Italians cheerfully told me the basic Italian diet was the best and most healthy in the world, I would nod in agreement, mentally labelling the comment as somewhat provincial in outlook. Nowadays, I see the error of my ways. The basic Italian diet is the best in the world. I am now the proud provincial.
The expatriate, back in Ireland on holidays, is inevitably questioned about the New Ireland. People are understandably curious about perceptions of the Emerald Tiger, especially those of the returning native and one who left in the mid-1980s when neither tigers nor emeralds figured high in your everyday chit-chat.
Obviously, for those of us who grew up in the Ireland of the late 1950s and 1960s, it is with huge pleasure that one returns to a place where "feel-good, can-do" attitudes have replaced defeatism, where begrudgery has been swamped by cyber-culture and where mushrooming arts festivals and literary weeks seem to indicate a serious cultural vibrancy. Also, it is remarkable to live in a State where every second newspaper or radio advertisement is offering new ways of investing your savings. Savings? What are they?
In glancing briefly at the New Ireland, however, one encounters a serious problem. Namely, that of vision. The New Ireland is hard to perceive, shrouded as it is in a conformist, multinational popular culture of North American overtones which takes for granted that everyone wants to eat hamburgers and chips, watch Star Wars movies, be a Manchester United supporter, play computer games, buy eclipse glasses and wear ugly, floppy sports-type clothing complete with even uglier platform shoes.
It happens somewhere around Arras, as you drive up towards the Chunnel at Calais. The sky clouds over and it looks like rain. However, this is not just your usual lousy British and Irish weather manifesting itself. Adding to the grim greyness is a toxic cloud of multinational French fries that reaches pollutant levels in motorway cafes, shopping centres and cities all over Britain and Ireland.
After a couple of days driving through the splendid richness of rural France, complete with villages that seem locked into a 1950s time warp, Britain and then Ireland present a fierce cultural shock. This summer, I was reminded of a remark made to us by an Italy-based Argentine friend who had just returned from a holiday in Britain: "Where are the English middle classes? Are they in hiding?"
Does no-one listen to BBC Radio 3 or Classic FM? Must a lunchtime pub sandwich be expanded into a repast suitable only for those involved in a 12-hour day of heavy manual labour? Surely, there is someone who doesn't give a damn about the silly old eclipse? Does the entire population of Britain and Ireland support Manchester United?
These are, of course, superficial observations. Yet, the returned exile cannot help but notice a "British Isles" cultural uniformity that would suggest that what 800 years of British oppression failed to achieve has been brought about in jig-time, courtesy of persistent showers of fivers of largely North American origins.
The Emerald Tiger is grand, but where is Ireland? Answer, you can find it in a brand-new, high-tech Irish music museum near the splendidly restored Jameson's Distillery in Smithfield, Dublin. Romantic Ireland is not so much with O'Leary in the grave, as in the museum, minding its own business and allowing people to get on with what really matters, i.e., earning the money for the weekend trip to Old Trafford and the real museum (the one dedicated to Busby's Babes etc).
One of the best days of our Irish holidays was a very wet Wednesday at the Dublin Horse Show. Sitting in a private RDS box courtesy of the sister-in-law's wealthy boss (a new experience this and something never managed in the family's lifetime participation at the show), it was strange to drink the chilled white wine and look up at the two-thirds empty grandstand watching the jumping.
My childhood memories of the days of Seamus Hayes and Goodbye or Tommy Wade and Dundrum are of packed grandstands when you had to go early to get a place to watch the international jumping.
It is, of course, true that the expatriate is caught up in a nostalgic time warp. Likewise, it seems obvious that in the New Ireland of David Beckham T-shirts, there is little room for either expatriate nostalgia or a largely rural event like the Dublin Horse Show. Never was one so glad to return to Italy.