The rain fell sideways as we packed the car this morning. Mammy had moved the car to as close to the door as she could get it. Still, we swopped bags of food and our mini suitcases for water and leaves trailed into the house underfoot.

It was a tight squeeze, five of us and all our stuff filling up the boot and obscuring the rear window. I remember rainy Saturday mornings just like this, in the early 1980s, Daddy hoisting the suitcase, the wind break, the deck chairs, onto the roof rack of the Ford Escort, covering the lot with the blue tarpaulin from an old tent, securing it with rope.

I had the playlist ready for today’s drive to Cork – 80s hits, of course, that we sang along to in between bursts of conversation.

The rain continued – sporadic heavy showers – and wind buffeted the car sideways. We pulled in to the Rock of Cashel for lunch – ham sandwiches made from yesterday’s boiled ham and Brennan’s bread washed down with sweet black tea from a flask. We stood around the picnic table in the rain, the hoods of our raincoats up, as a sudden heavy shower chased away the slash of blue sky that had briefly appeared. I couldn’t have been happier. Few things in the world taste as great as ham sandwiches and tea from a flask on a wet day, memory and nostalgia adding magical flavour to the food.

We reached our destination late afternoon and quickly unpacked the car. My sister started to make dinner and realized she was two ingredients short. Lily and I walked the couple of hundred metres up to the shop in the village square. On the walk back, we were blown down the hill by the strong wind, rain hitting us on the back. ‘This is perfect,’ I said to Lily. A seaside holiday in Ireland isn’t complete unless you get at least one wild night like this.’ The wind, the rain, the slight bite in the air, took me back 30, 40, 45 years, to family vacations here in west Cork, in Kerry, in Wexford, in Mayo.

Tomorrow we plan to go to the beach – in our raincoats, most likely.