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November 2008

 

The first snows of Autumn Cold winds from the North and a more than adequate supply of moisture in the air above the Roe Valley - locals would say that there is nothing unusual about that -  have produced the first early snows this Autumn. The white slush could only be closely examined on higher lying regions, like Benevenagh, but if this early snowfall is a hint of things to come, we could be in for a very cold winter with huge snowmen looming everywhere.

The Town hall saga continued (9999th instalment) The sorry tale of the replacement for the Alexander Memorial Hall, whose dilapidated remains can be studied on the left, has just had another chapter added. The place was knocked down because it was felt to be unsafe. Two or three adjacent houses were bought and the resultant large site in the centre of town was very sensibly earmarked as ideal for a civic centre - museum and all. Work started and was then stopped by building control and a year ago the project was cancelled because they couldn't get access rights. (Strange that it took 11 years to notice this problem). The council has now very sensibly decided to re-launch the project. Here at the News Browser we hope that they get on with the job as soon as possible. May we suggest that a facility is included that helps people in search of their ancestors? Every year dozens of people from around the world travel to Limavady to walk the soil their forefathers trod and find out as much about them as they can. There is no central facility available to help them - apart from the Notice-Board on this website. We would urge our readers to take a look at The Notice Board. Who knows, your bit of local knowledge could be making somebody's day.

Plane-spotting Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed this strange plane flying low and slow over the valley and Lough Foyle. After all, one doesn't spot a twin engined propeller plane very often these days. It's a converted DC-3 which belongs to a firm called Bell Geospace. They specialise in geo-physical surveys using a state of the art 'Full Tensor Gravity Gradiometer'. Basically this means that they can detect very slight variation in the earth's gravitational field and - with the help of other information as well as a powerful computer- tell you whether you happen to be sitting on a pot of gold rather than just a bog standard multi-million dollar oil well. The photo on the left was taken more recently than the one above. It seems that not only are they doing a low level geological survey - they appear to be counting the squirrels as well! You learn something new every month in the Roe Valley News Browser, don't you?

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