"With good people out front, we can do double what we did tonight," intoned our anorexic proprietress. I lay bets that the house special lobster cream ravioli has never crossed her pursed lips.

Back at my apartment, a couple of silver-service schooled buddies of Elaine, my flatmate and co-worker, showed us how it's done. The first  plate is slotted under the thumb and pinkie with subsequent plates stacked on the heel of the hand as you scrape the uneaten remains onto the first plate.

This was invented for good reason. Elaine recounted a gratuity-minimising encounter with a diner:  "Squelch?" she commented,  as she squelched a large lump of garlic butter between two plates.

Elaine's friends were employed at the swank 5-star Park Hotel just out of town and were eager to enlighten we of the kebab-house institute. One useful tip for our two-floor restaurant was the need for a "floater," someone who floats around the entire restaurant, lending a hand where necessary and spotting clients who need attention. That evening I applied this technology to my shift, concentrating on downstairs whilst two others did upstairs and a third did the floating. It worked well, but Katherine made it clear she wanted superwaitresses, not systems, waitresses with eyes on all sides of the head and X-ray capability to see through the floor above.

"Nieve is my star waitress," chided Katherine, "she knows exactly what's going on at all times".

Nieve was a teacher, and at every opportunity made it clear that she wasn't a waitress at all, but a teacher. Whilst scurrying around with plates and wine bottles, she looked like a waitress to me. Nieve wore sensible shoes and unassuming tights and skirt with a cashmere jumper that had a pearl design embroidered around the neck. I wore the only sensible thing I had in my backpack, a pair of Harley Davidson boots with silver plaque thinly disguised by a see-through black tube skirt that could double as an upper body mosquito net if sleeping in a hammock. Katherine eyed my somewhat racy getup and suggested I might like to borrow some of her clothes, but I graciously declined her generosity, not wanting to inconvenience her yet, at the same time not realizing I'd set milk souring.

On my first day off I rode north of the town up to a point on the Kerry Way where you can admire Kenmare in its sylvan setting. I rode towards a place called Currabeg, stopping at the little pier not too far from my apartment where you could gaze out across the chilly waters of Kenmare Bay. I took my snap camera out, and as often happens after framing it through the pathetic viewfinder, put it away without taking the shot. Point-and-shoot cameras are surely designed to remind you that real life is always better than the bottled variety. I thought about the caption for that photo. "Here's my local pier." It felt like a lie. As happens time and time again in my travels, I stood there and felt an invisible hand on my shoulder, ushering me onwards. Is there ever a time and a place where you can truly stop, even for five minutes? Even at home, parents have the knack of saying, "Isn't it time you got off your ass?"

A bit of uphill peddling, fuelled by an excellent TLT (turkey lettuce and tomato sandwich) from the locals' favourite grubberie, Nicky Ned's, and I was ready for my day-off treat: dinner at my restaurant. Being a bit of a tiresome wag, I called up the restaurant and, in my best scone-in-mouth accent, made a booking for Lady Byron Templeton, "just for the craic" as the oirish put it. Apparently this caused a minor ripple in the kitchen. I reasoned that without this alibi, I would have been stuck in the toilet. I showered and put on my "opera clothes" -- a packable long black dress and jacket -- and sauntered down for my 8:30 date with myself. As it turned out I got the "jilted sod's table," a lone little nightstand with a single chair outside the toilet. I ordered a house red, the incomparable uovo ravioli (one huge ravioli occupying most of the plate in a butter sauce), the delicious home made fennel and pork sausage with salsa, and for dessert, a divine pear pie washed down with a house white, which came to 20 quid in all, or 3-and-a-bit hours work. Unaccustomed as I am to meat or alcohol,  I had to spend some time in the lounge sobering up lest I mimic the incredible bouncing knife from my first night on the floor.

I shuffled home to watch Casino on video until 3am, which made America look like a very scary place. That night I tossed and turned fitfully; the lethal combination of overstimulating movie and meaty pork sausage kept me dreaming and digesting until sunup.

I could not wait for my next day off when I could jump on the bike again and explore the Cumeen Gap, a part of the Beara Peninsula I had missed on my first trip through these parts almost 6 months ago. This meant peddling though some wonderfully named places like Dromoghty Glen, and passing through some interesting geological formations -- hills that looked like they'd been sliced with a meat cleaver with the resulting slabs slipping against each other.

Back in Kenmare and after I finished my shift at 11pm, I made for The Square Pint, the local afters place, where I would often go for a 2 quid bowl of soup and bread during my lunchbreak. Tonight, the Pint featured a brilliant band fronted by a virtuoso female squeezebox player and an equally impressive mandolinist. From my leaning place near the door I made indecent eye contact with the bass player, a tall blonde lad with a build reminiscent of those Welsh football players with whom I was fortunate to be locked at the Fox & Hounds pub last summer.

I use to think this never really happened at gigs due to the lights shining into the performers' eyes and the seething throng before them, but my once-famous musician friend assured me that yes, eye contact definitely occurs, followed by a front row nod and a back stage wink and a night to forget back in the hotel room or truck or wherever if all goes right. Afterwards, I approached the bassplayer, Dave, to say hello and we exchanged numbers. In fact, I had learned to play slap bass while back in Australia, and all I really wanted to do was harass him for a few techniques. In the background I spotted my flatmate Elaine, looking curiously drenched from head to toe, being escorted through the crowd.

When we arrived back at my apartment Elaine was being nursed by her Mr. Right Now, having slipped over in the Square Pint toilets and split her lip, not to mention knocking herself out cold in the process. Apparently the management had to douse her into consciousness by sticking a hose under the toilet door. A case of good old Guiness getting the better of the uninitiated. We drifted off to my tape of Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy playing on repeat.

The next day I heard, "Lynette, it's not working out," from Katherine.

I was floored. Nothing prepares you for being fired. Not even if its a job you hate with a passion. Quitting had already crossed my mind barely three weeks into the season, but Katherine beat me to it. I suddenly came over all faint and had to excuse myself and make for the toilet where I stuck my head between my knees to stabilize.  If the demise of my career began with lack of X-ray vision for servicing the floor above or my threatening waitressing attire, it deteriorated faster than a prawn cocktail under a blowdryer when I started innocently offering suggestions to enhance the business.

In my advertising career I was paid to come up with ideas. I foolishly assumed this would be appreciated in my new pursuit. The fact was, "An Leath Phingen was a successful, Michelin-star-to-be outfit that had been wowing people with its handmade pasta since the day it opened," I was reminded.  Who the hell was I? Katherine was reluctant to elaborate further, but in true imposing style, I implored her to give me more feeback on how I'd "fooked up," so I could take more away with me than a footprint stamped on my derriere.

"It's a personality thing. We find your suggestions intrusive. I like someone to just get on with it. And you don't seem to have really grasped the place," she said simply.

Despite the shock, I continued in my galling style and treated myself to a last supper in the restaurant that evening. This flipped the entire staff out. Then again, life's too short to spend too much time in recovery. In the ensuing weeks in Kenmare, I often spotted my former employers in the street and they appeared to do their best to avoid me. Just before I left, I put a letter and a recipe in an envelope under their door. It read, in part: Dear Con and Katherine, Just a short note to let you know I will soon be uprooting once again and leaving the country which has been my home for almost a year. Enclosed please find the won-ton recipe I promised you, dug up from my father's notes (he is an excellent cook), and I am sorry we never got to make it together. I want to thank you for giving me the chance to come to Kenmare, to experience living in a small town and try my hand at something I had never done before, because if it weren't for you, I would never have seen County Kerry.  I wish you Michelin stars and every success with the restaurant.

Yours in friendship,
Lynette Chiang.