At an early age I realised I was mechanically dyslexic, a problem that was compounded by difficulties when it came to acquiring basic arithmetic skills. There was never even a moment when I entertained the thought of pursuing a career in engineering, although at some stage in my life I hope to eventually conquer the difficulties of learning to drive a car that have plagued me for the last 20 years.
Now, these difficulties delight and haunt me each morning as I try to make my way to work - a seven-mile journey from Knocklyon to the city centre. Each morning I delight in the feat of engineering that is gracing my suburb as a new extension to the M5 motorway pushes eastward from the Firhouse roundabout across the River Dodder and on through Knocklyon in the general direction of Dun Laoghaire.
At the age of 46, I am working as a journalist in the city centre, and the combination of new road-works in the Knocklyon area and my reliance on public transport condemns me to a bus journey each morning that can last from one hour and 10 minutes on a good day to - on more than one occasion - two hours and 20 minutes.
Each morning of the working week, Bus Atha Cliath provides only two 49B buses from Tallaght to serve Ballycullen Road and Ballycullen Avenue. Inevitably, by the time the 7.30 a.m. bus from the Square reaches Ballycullen Road, it is full. To add insult and misery to the injury, the bus often has broken seats or is an older model that leaves standing room only for most of the journey into the city centre.
On the way home it's no better. Sometimes the 49B either doesn't turn up, arrives early so that those leaving to catch it are left standing, or - on one recent occasion - simply does not pull up at the bus stop despite having plenty of empty seats.
THE buses are crammed, few efforts are made to enforce the prohibition on smoking upstairs, and you inevitably end up sitting beside someone whose walkman is turned up so high you have to ask why he bothers to wear earphones as you are forced to listen to the incessant din of "Chugga-Chugga-Chuggachug."
I have watched neighbours as they decide instead to walk on to Templeogue Bridge, and reach the bridge in the same time it takes the bus to get there. But walking is not an option for anyone trying to make the full journey into the city centre - by then the bus is full.
In the past two months, I have made the morning rush-hour journey in less than 80 minutes. Ironically, the first occasion was the day of the train strike, when everyone was warned of traffic chaos in the city centre, and the second was on December 8th, traditionally a day for crushed shopping and jammed roads. And the morning when it took two hours and 20 minutes to make the journey came after a weekend when the traffic light co-ordination had been reset to take account of the Year 2000 bug and, presumably, to ease the flow of traffic.
A part of the problem in the Ballycullen/ Knocklyon area is caused by the tail-back of cars trying to get onto the M50 at the Firhouse roundabout. This may be eased if South County Dublin agrees to restore its plans for a new bridge across the Dodder linking the end of Knocklyon Road with the Spawell roundabout. But there is no escaping the presumption that the greater part of the problem is caused by an increasing number of cars on the road simply because many residents in the areas of Knocklyon, Ballycullen, and Firhouse presume they cannot rely on public transport.
There is no remedy in sight. Complaints to bus inspectors are met with a nonchalance that drives me further and further to thinking once again about overcoming my mechanical dyslexia and learning how to drive. But then that will only add to the tailback stretching for a mile or more back up Ballycullen Road each morning. And it would deprive me of a guaranteed hour or two of secluded reading.
