Displaced in Mullingar:If you want to pass through Toronto airport without hassle, you'd best not mention seabirds, writes Michael Harding

I went to Newfoundland two weeks ago. I had an urge to view the rocky cliffs, the swelling ocean, and the wild birds, hovering over it all.

Going through Dublin airport, I saw an old man in a state of confusion. His bony hands were shaking and his eyes were watery. He didn't understand why the security people wanted his belt and watch. Eventually they got his stuff into a tray, and he walked through the metal detector arch; but then he kept walking.

A sour security man called him back to recover his belongings.

"It's a good job his head is screwed on," he declared to a colleague, "or he'd forget that too."

I went for coffee, paying at the cash desk and queuing with my paper cup. The machine was empty. The young executive ahead of me, livid with rage, demanded his money back. But the woman at the till said she couldn't do that, because he had thrown away his receipt. His neck went red, and his jugular vein looked like it was about to burst.

Afraid of stirring any more anxiety in the building, I waited until the machine was refilled. Then, as I poured the hot coffee into a paper cup, a big lady floated into my rear and the coffee spilled down the leg of my trousers.

At 30,000ft the trousers dried, and I dreamed about the gannets that fill the sky above Newfoundland's southern shore. The brochure says 40,000 of them nest on a single sandstone stack, and can be viewed from a cliff, just metres away.

By the time I woke, five hours later, I was truly relaxed. In fact I was much too relaxed for Toronto Airport. As I sauntered up to the customs officer, I was still half asleep and light in the head.

"Why are you visiting Canada?" she inquired. "I'm not," I said. "I'm going to Newfoundland." "Newfoundland is in Canada," she said sternly. "I know. I was only joking." She wasn't amused.

"Why did you come through Toronto?" "I didn't have a map when I booked the ticket." "And what are you going to do in Newfoundland? Sir." I laughed and said, "I'd like to see the gannets." She slashed a red marker across my customs declaration card and directed me down a long corridor to her right. Everyone else was flashing passports at her and walking merrily to the left.

Halfway down the corridor there was another security guard. "Last door on your right sir," he said with mock deference.

I began to wonder why I didn't stay in Mullingar, and just go to Mayo for a weekend. I turned into a room and found myself in an underworld of fluorescent light, in a queue of about 100 people, mostly Indians.

Three officers were meticulously processing the entire queue; old women in saris were grilled aggressively, their private lives scrutinised by men with loud voices.

There was a rock band in the queue; by the look of them they weren't at the height of their career.

On the flight out of Toronto, there was an air steward sitting on the seat that faces the passengers during take off.

I suppose she sees a lot of humanity from that seat, but her face didn't show any emotion; she had a way of being private behind her make-up. I imagined her thinking of her home, wherever it is. I imagined her phoning her kids from different airports, saying "I love you".

Air stewards are like angels to all the dispossessed of the earth, who wander the sky in the hope of finding what some eastern Europeans already have in Mullingar: a little room with light and heat, a television, a takeaway dinner and a few beers.

We began our descent - not to Newfoundland but to Montreal. Another city, another airport, and still 1,000 miles to travel, all for a flock of birds. Montreal airport is no different to any other airport: the same long concourse with open lounges; the numbered departure gates; the shoe shines; the coffee shops; the bars and toilets.

A policeman with a green Mountie hat was sipping coffee in Starbucks. I said, "I like your hat." "Where are you from?" he asked.

"Ireland." "First time in Montreal?" "No; heading for Newfoundland." "Oh yeah? So what you gonna do there?" I was about to say gannets, again, but I checked myself.

"I'm on vacation, sir," I said politely. He understood that.