At the Academy Club in London standing in front of 'The Westernmost sofa' a painting inspired by finding an old sofa dumped in a circle of arum lilies on Slea Head, facing the Blasket islands. Photo : Philippa Perry

The westernmost kitchen, trying to be a domestic goddess but some days I feel more like a domestic antichrist.... days when all that left in the fridge is oven chips and laver bread. What exactly is wrong with seaweed and chips? I ask the kids, knowing that they're dreaming of fish fingers.....

I know I live in the most beautiful place on earth, but the tea ceremony is getting to me.

Loosely based on Vermeer..... my kitchen with the cornucopia of plenty weighing down the table, postcards of the Dingle peninsula behund. A glamourised view of my years as an earth mother ( which my kids don't seem to remember....they just remember seaweed and chips)

The circus comes to town, it's a low key family show but there's always one act that holds it together . This year the Mexican tightrope walker. I watch the plate spinner dropping plates onto the sawdust, trying to keep his smile as his face turns deep red. That's me I think, trying to keep it all together with shards of broken china round my feet ..... or am I walking a tightrope with no idea where I'm going?

A tribute to women around the world who still do 90 % of the washing up. After I painted this we set off round Europe in a van .... the only kind of travel where you do literally take the kitchen sink with you. I eventually settled down and got a dishwasher.

It was just before I moved to the Dingle peninsula that Dolly Parton came over and played an impromptu gig at Paidi O Se s bar.

Last of this series ..... I clear out the studio and pile everything onto a giant bonfire in the garden. The dried up Christmas tree catches and sets light to a plastic roof box and the hedge, the village is covered in evil smelling black smoke. As I stand in the field with a hose in my dressing gown, the burning bush says to me. I am a sign, how much more bloody obvious can it be - you need to change your life, go to Biarritz and become a surfer!

On the other side of the harbour is the black strand , where you might find human bones from Armada shipwrecks, or you might find priceless treasure like the golden salamders.

Carnival, Dingle style. The wren is ancient, pagan, pretty mad really. Only in the Kingdom of Kerry

Going back years later I am made an honorary member of the John Street Wren