I’m writing this as we travel home from London after Varnishing Day at the Royal Academy, as it’s the first time I’ve been free to think about the last few weeks.

As we left Dublin in April I heard that Hidden in plain sight XX had made the cut for the Royal Hibernian Academy, and that certainly put a pep in my step.

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As we hung my solo show in Radicondoli I really had no idea of how it would be received. If people were looking for colourful Tuscan landscapes they were going to be sorely disappointed. But the title of the show “Nascosto in piena vista” should have given them a clue. Everything was monotone bar a flash of rust running through all the very dark drypoints. It’s always scary once everything is hung, there was no going back, and now I had to face the music.

Well I couldn’t have more surprised; I can honestly say that I never had a reaction to my work like it before. The opening night was an incredibly happy occasion but it was afterwards that really amazed me. Almost every time I left our flat, someone, often complete strangers, approached me to thank me for putting on the exhibition. A lot of people recognised the places/subjects in the work.

By now you’ve probably realised my Italian is pretty awful and I’m constantly making mortifying mistakes. Well it wouldn’t be normal if this trip was any different. On meeting a neighbour, she was talking excitedly AND extremely fast telling me about a little nest of baby birds, I did my best saying how lovely that was and how lucky she was and that I’d love to have seen them. In fact she was far more excited about this nest than the arrival of her grandson a few months previously. When I got home and told Marcus about the odd encounter, he twigged what had happened; she had seen my exhibition and really liked one of the drypoints!

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I also gave a printmaking demonstration and a class. What lifted my heart was when one of the participants exclaimed that he was the happiest man in town!
The three weeks flew by and then we were home in Dublin and the final wait for the results of the Royal Academy selection arrived… I got in for the seventh time. Happy days!

And now to the Varnishing Day itself. As everyone queues patiently trying to look nonchalant, once in, there’s a mad scramble to find where everyone’s work is hanging. As I reached the top of the stairs and into the Central Hall, I let out a squeak; there was my piece! I couldn’t believe my eyes, hanging with my hero the late Norman Ackroyd. The following day in The Guardian, there was a photo from the Royal Academy and there, if you look very closely, possibly with a magnifying glass, you can see my work hanging with my hero Norman and Tracey Emin. It will be quite some time before I come down to earth.