There are certain trying times when I just sit down and say to myself, how in under God did I end up here?

I stare forlornly and shake my head ruefully and I attempt ukeireru, the Japanese concept of acceptance, but I can never really summon it.

And so, on Boxing Day, I sat down on wet grass and brambles, cold hands and wet backside, up on the bank of the M1 – between Loughgall and The Birches, wherever the hell that is – and looked around me.

Desolate farms and empty fields and barbed wire and a biting wind and I could find no shelter.

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My car sat on the hard shoulder as the vehicles thundered by. That’s why I was up the bank. I was terrified........

© The Irish News