Never so happy to see a cup of Barry’s tea and a ham sandwich in my life. Ever.

I have returned from America in one piece... just about. Unfortunately I fell victim to a bad flu somewhere over the Atlantic and ended up quarantined for most of the trip. A total of three alcoholic beverages were consumed over the seven days I was away and one of those had beetroot juice in it. It has got to have been the most sober holiday I’ve had in my adult life to date.

Himself on the other hand had a very unsober holiday. He spent most of his time in the hotel bar trying to befriend a bar man called Rocco, who looked like a pal of Tony Soprano and was twice as angry. Rocco took great umbrage at my suggestion that he was trying to poison me with the amount of gin he was putting in my drink (very unlike me to complain about too much gin – I must’ve been sick.) and refused to serve me for the rest of our stay.

In my unusual state of sobriety I did make some interesting observations however. Americans may speak the same language as us Irish, but really they may as well be talking in tongues they are so different.

For instance you go into a restaurant for breakfast. The waiters introduce themselves as if you’re going to be lifelong friends. You’re never going to see them again so why would you care what their name is? You order food. You would think this would be a simple process. Oh no.

‘What kind of toast would you like?’ they ask. ‘ What have you got?’ I reply. ‘We have white, wheaten, rye, sourghdough, cinnammon and rasin, multi grain...’ She goes on and on and on. I want to scream at her, ‘just give me two slices of feckin’ Brennans.’

The same with the eggs, the bacon and the tea. By the time she finishes her spiel, I’m not hungry anymore.

They try too hard. They don’t get sarcasm. And most importantly they don’t get our sense of humour. At all. When the sales lady asked us did the Catholics wear green and Protestants wear orange on St Patrick’s Day, we told her only the ones that have leprechauns. She nodded sagely.

I longed to say having a fourth cousin twice removed from Ireland does not make you Irish, nor does wearing green on St Patty’s Day (How I wanted to correct that one.). But it’s nice that you think so much of our history and heritage that you want to be associated with it.

But you know, we would NEVER have voted for Trump. Not in a million years.

I am so glad to be home. And never so happy to see a cup of Barry’s tea and a ham sandwich in my life.

AMERICANS TRY TOO HARD. THEY DON’T GET SARCASM. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY THEY DON’T GET OUR SENSE OF HUMOUR