By Peg Prendeville

My life has been turned upside down since Jim got his stroke and it is very hard to concentrate on anything apart from names of doctors, nurses, physios, OTs, and numerous other medical professionals. They are all doing their best to give him back some quality of life but he has a long road to recovery. No hospital visits are allowed which does not help matters. However if you all have no objection I will try and continue the Knockdown News column, which has been going for over twenty years now.

We are into the 2^nd week of the New Year and the area around the Knockdown Arms is silent as a grave due again to all the Covid restrictions. Little we thought, last March, that we would be back at the starting line again. But here we are and must make the best of it and stay at home as much as possible and keep our distance.

Sympathies to the McCoy family in Curramore on the death of Pa McCoy last weekend. It is a horrible time for bereaved families with numbers so restricted.

Yes, life is very grey at the moment but I got a great lift during the week on reading a poem by Helen Steiner Rice called The Bend in the Road. It reads as follows:

Sometimes we come to life’s crossroads

And we view what we think is the end.

But God has a much wider vision

And he knows that it’s only a bend.

The road will go on and get smoother

And after we’ve stopped for a rest,

The path that lies hidden beyond us

Is often the path that is best.

So rest and relax and grow stronger,

Let go and let God share your load

And have faith in a brighter tomorrow-

You’ve just come to a bend in the road.

We hope that bend straightens out soon. Stay safe. Stay at home.