ARRIVING at the back gate of the Irish News on Monday - picture the mouth of a post-apocalyptic Batcave and you'll get the idea - I was in reasonably good form for someone returning to the office after being on holiday.
My upbeat mood lasted precisely as long as it took me to get out of the car and punch in the code to gain entry.
That brief moment was all the nails-down-a-blackboard racket of electronic birdsong, which has been assailing the car park for months, needed to hammer its way back into the very marrow of my soul.
Grinding salt into the aural wound was the fact that a flock of pigeons was stalking the car park as I drove in. That may or may not be an indication of the efficacy of the e-gulls' digital din as an avian deterrent...
It had taken the first three days of leave for me to stop hearing the fake tweeting ALL THE TIME.
By the time I was no longer hearing imaginary birds, we were in Co Cork and at the start of an Irish roadtrip - our mission was to visit the most southerly, westerly and northerly points of the mainland along the 'Wild Atlantic Way'.
The odyssey was a chance to revisit some of the places that bookmarked my childhood family holidays and introduce them to my 10-year-old son.
There's something almost sacred about the act of passing on the outlines of cherished memories, by now warm and fuzzy and comforting, and at the same time creating new, shared experiences which are - for now, at least - stored in the mind's hard drive in ultra-high-definition clarity.
The trip was also a vivid reminder of just how beautiful our country is, though that wasn't necessarily what I was thinking on the day we went to Mizen Head.
I had never experienced rain like it; water seemed to blast us from every possible direction, including some yet to be invented. And that was just opening the car door.
The streets, churches and forts of Kinsale - pretty, prosperous and pricey - almost tell the history of Ireland in microcosm; further north, Kilkee, in Co Clare, left an impression of faded glories.
Lines of coaches and motorhomes make the Ring of Kerry all but unbearable. If you want a semblance of peace in Kerry you need to head to Dingle Peninsula, the western extremities of which seem to be mostly off the cruise liner and coach tour circuit.
Push past Ventry - where, as a child, I was allowed to drive on the beach - and you'll get to Slea Head and a café perched on a hillside overlooking the sea with the most spectacular views.
From there it's a pleasant hike to the tip of Dunmore Head, the most westerly point on the mainland; this is one of the handful of places around the coast where you feel you're standing on the edge of the world, never mind the coast of Ireland.
The Cliffs of Moher, meanwhile, were underwhelming - did they seem smaller than I remembered because I'm taller than when I first visited?
Every party of tourists 'doing Ireland' must be contractually obliged to visit the cliffs, with the net effect that you end up shuffling along a muddy path, endlessly stopping and starting as your fellow trudgers take selfies. If you think about, it's quite a feat to make sea cliffs feel over-crowded.
Sliabh Leag in Donegal is much more like it; three times the height of the Cliffs of Moher, their grandeur puts you back on the edge of the world again.
Back in the dreary here and now, we're standing on the political precipice - particularly if that appalling performance by Arlene Foster and Michelle Gildernew is anything to go by. We need a backstop to save us from such nonsense.
Time for another holiday...
