How Was Your Day/Week?

[Mr EliteL]

Ha yeah, our houses are built to keep the heat in. Oy yoy, nights have a little better recently and temperature has dropped, but still can't have a duvet on the bed. I prefer duvets, even if thin ones so there's something over me as I sleep. I've always had my duvet cover with my legs and arms out of it even still.

Our garden wall was battered and needed a fix, from plant growth, cracks and some bricks had broken. That got done recently. Nothing much else been going on.

[Kyng]

I've had a lovely week, going away for a few days with my girlfriend, to Taunton in Somerset.

Taunton itself doesn't have a massive amount to do, but it is near some interesting places. For example, it's not far from the West Somerset Railway, which, at 20 miles, is one of the longest preserved railways in the country. This took us to the seaside town of Minehead, which is actually where my grandparents had one of their first holidays! Though, we only had three hours there - which was just enough time to get lunch from one of the chippies; spend a bit of time on the beach; try our luck on the arcade machines; and eat some (in my case, dairy-free) ice cream.

Another highlight was our trip to Dunster, whose main attraction is its castle. The actual defensive structures were mostly torn down in the 1650s, after the English Civil War, but the country house at the centre remains, and it has rooms restored to how they would have appeared in a variety of time periods, from the Medieval era to the 20th century. On top of that, the castle has its own water mill (which we got to watch milling flour), and Dunster itself has a museum with quite an impressive doll collection!

I'm on my way home now. I do miss my girlfriend, of course - but I'm glad we got to spend the last five days together!

[Mr EliteL]

You had a jolly great break there, Kyng. Good times.

Not doing much with my time, usually just doing whatever after work. Had our garden wall fixed a couple weeks ago, then tomorrow we got the same workers coming to sort the completely screwed and rotting flower bed...timber sleepers (who named them "sleepers"?!).

Also something out of the ordinary happened today. An incident happened in a town over, an explosion that made our own whole town shake. Supposedly occurred at a farm. We also heard the sound, so we got a taster on what an impending doom feels like, oh boy.

[Moonface]

Also something out of the ordinary happened today. An incident happened in a town over, an explosion that made our own whole town shake. Supposedly occurred at a farm. We also heard the sound, so we got a taster on what an impending doom feels like, oh boy.

My parents sent me some videos of that, along with a photo from my window of the smoke plume that made it look like it was inside town itself rather than the next one over. I was under the impression it happened on an industrial site instead of a farm, but either would be viable to have an explosion occur if a fire broke out to set something off.

[Maniakkid25]

Was it Ammonium Nitrate? I bet it was Ammonium Nitrate. Grade A fertilizer and one half of ANFO (a common "low-speed" explosive), when it gets set on fire, it explosively decomposes. Which is funny, because its actually notoriously difficult to directly set on fire. This was the same stuff that caused the Beirut explosion back in 2020, though obviously that was a lot bigger.

[Moonface]

Was it Ammonium Nitrate? I bet it was Ammonium Nitrate. Grade A fertilizer and one half of ANFO (a common "low-speed" explosive), when it gets set on fire, it explosively decomposes. Which is funny, because its actually notoriously difficult to directly set on fire. This was the same stuff that caused the Beirut explosion back in 2020, though obviously that was a lot bigger.

No idea as I haven't read any news stories on it yet, but this was the incident: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2vgyzy1kyo

If BBC decides to paywall it, here's the short and narrow from the article:

A major incident was declared and more than 100 firefighters were sent to tackle a massive fire which ripped through an industrial unit and caused a huge explosion, triggered by a store of fertiliser.

A number of buildings and vehicles on farmland were gutted by the fire, which kept burning into Saturday.

The cause of the fire was being investigated, the fire service said.

As of Friday evening, it was not clear whether there had been casualties, but in an update that night, Dave Bond of Essex County Fire and Rescue Service said: "While on the scene, fertiliser inside one of the units exploded and residents across the county have reported hearing and feeling it.

"This is why we declared a major incident, and I want to reassure our residents that there is no wider risk to the public at this time."

Seems the cause of the fire isn't known still, but the explosion it set off was from fertiliser in one of the units. With the current temperatures in the UK I wonder if the fire was simply from dry grass getting too dry and hot like how a lot of the California wildfires tend to start?

[Maniakkid25]

"Store of fertilizer" tells me everything I need to know about that explosion. There aren't very many chemicals with the particularly peculiar property of blowing things sky-high, on top of being good for plants. Shame it happened to them, but I'm not exactly surprised that it exploded with the force of God when the place caught on fire.

[Moonface]

Well, it doesn't seem anyone was hurt from it, maybe from the fire and the explosion being far enough apart for anyone nearby to get the heck out of dodge. I've heard that those silos that hold grain or something have a chance to explode if not kept in check because of the heat that can be generated from the density of the grains or something like that, which is something that could go off without warning and definitely catch someone off guard.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah we've had little to no rain, mostly sun/heat and dry weather. It was calming down then all of a sudden that happens, and now back into another heatwave this week. Temperature risen today, 34 tomorrow, now makes me wonder if another incident will occur again somewhere else.

[ShiraNoMai]

On the bright side, you might not have to smell hot stinky manure being made/spread this coming season!

It's been pretty oppressive here lately, I feel more than the usual brand of Florida hot. Like, 8AM and we're well over 30C. Moony tells me that even 3 or 4AM isn't much better, when he goes to work.

[Mr EliteL]

On the contrary, we're still getting air filled with the smell of manure, heck last night coming home from my Dad's I smelt it even after what's happened.

That temperature in the morning is ridiculous. I've forgotten what the air quality was like when I was over there in the US. Tomorrow we're getting the 30C at 12noon at least, but the air will be poor in the afternoon and reaching 34C by 5PM. I'd imagine your area could be higher/worse if it's starting at 30C at 8AM. The forecast after tomorrow gradually gets better, back to mid 20's next week hopefully.