Leo was asked to draw a picture of his family the other day. It included Tony watching James Bond's Goldfinger, Hannah at the zoo feeding the monkeys, Leo on my computer playing Shockmachine, and me doing the Hoovering. He told me he did consider drawing me beside him playing Shockmachine, but thought I'd look better doing housework. No wonder I'm beginning to seriously examine my life.

It's not just that of course; it's that a series of events has conspired to make us examine the practicality of the choice we have made to move here, and how much external forces can shape the viability of a life choice. Tony has had more than a few auditions which have involved trips up and down to Dublin on a more and more frequent basis, which means I'm spending a lot more time on my own.

Because of my location here, I've spent the past six months researching the viability of writing online, pursuing my theory that location is irrelevant, and that the cyber age is made for people like me. I've had considerable success developing online work without face-to-face meetings. However, demand is now gearing up, and in the past two weeks I've had enquiries from Surrey and Dublin, for work which requires a considerable number of meetings.

At one such meeting in Dublin recently, I realised that even though I can develop the contacts on-line, all roads still lead back to the capital. "Let's meet next Friday," my potential client suggested, while I raced through the impossibility of that, given the fact that we only have one car, I live three hours away, not to mind the fact that Tony and I would be passing each other on the way there and back. I'm off to Washington at the end of the week to cover the Island Arts 2000 festival, and nearly had a heart attack when the suggestion was made that I travel via Shannon. This would have meant a long journey the day before, and an overnight stay to get the plane on time.

Luckily, they managed to get me a flight out of Dublin, but it's only staving off something which is likely to happen again. Once again, the issue of local infrastructure raises its head. If I am without the car, the first bus to Sligo from Manorhamilton leaves at 12.45 p.m. If I took it, I'd have to get a late train from Sligo to Dublin, necessitating an overnight stay to make an early morning meeting.

Even if I got the train, it would only take me to Carrick-on-Shannon, then I'd have to transfer to a bus until Mullingar, and back on the train again. Not conducive to good mental welfare.

Last Sunday, Tony got a call-back for an audition, which meant him travelling from Manor to Dublin and back in the one day, just so we could enjoy a day-and-a-half together.

It's not what we planned, and eight months in, the strain is beginning to show. It seems you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't. I had to develop more work to compensate for leaving Dublin, and thought by developing a market in new media my problems would be solved.

Now its Catch 22, because the work I've developed looks like it will ultimately lead me back, my location is not equipped with the kind of transport service that would enable the necessary commute, and there is precious little or no work for me to do here, in real time or virtual reality.

We are white, middle-class professionals, with a car and at least some disposal income, so I couldn't help thinking about the reality of my circumstances compared with those of possible asylum seekers who might be re-located to a place such as Leitrim.

With a dire public transport system, no money and no work, what exactly do People-in-Dublin (whom I intend in future to refer to as PIDs) think these asylum seekers would do in a place like Manor? "Wouldn't you take a load of them, up there in Manorhamilton," a rather unenlightened PID recently suggested to me at a party in Dublin, "sure ye've nobody living there". I felt too weary to explain to him that if the infrastructural difficulties affect me and my life in these ways, what chance would those hampered by language and economics have?

Some, if the Government was actually putting finance into generating part-time employment, to revitalising a community which has suffered so much itself from economic migration for decades. I understand why: it's because PIDs see the Celtic Tiger prowling around every corner, whereas we know it caught the last bus to Sligo.