All the building activity in Limavady at the moment seems to be directed towards 'Town Houses' and apartments. Properties that once contained a tiny bungalow with a rather small garden suddenly sprout five to ten town houses with several parking spaces and easy communications with your neighbour across the road.

The building on the right is a case in point. Originally there was just a very small house backed by a rather elongated garden, where naughty students from Limavady High School could have a secret smoke. Now there is this rather splendid edifice rising at the corner of Irish Green Street and Connell Street - it really does look well.

The building is called 'Charles Court' in memory of a young man who died in a building accident last year.

What everyone has so far called the 'Central Carpark' has acquired a brand new name. Younger readers who might be tempted to think that this is just another of a large number of brilliantly imaginative Ulster place names - Newbuildings springs to mind - should think again. For a long time Limavady's official name was 'Newtowne Limavady', but everyone just called it Newto'n.

You can read all about it by following this link.

The recent exponential increase in the number of people with dreadfully black hands has finally been explained: all the lampposts in town have acquired a new coat of paint.

You have been warned!

Could this civic maintenance be connected with the fact that Limavady is in the finals of the best kept town competition?

It took quite a while for the colour of the smoke to change to grey: indicating that the fire brigade was coming out on top as usual.

May and early June usually bring some sunny days. Nature has arranged this to annoy all the hard working students who live in the town. They have to do their exams around this time of the year and if there is one thing worse than sitting an exam in brilliant sunshine, it's swatting for one on a glorious day!  

We pensioners of course are grinning all over our ancient faces.