Sunday Dec 12 2005

Caught the news at various times throughout the day, which dealt mainly with the huge fire at the oil depot in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, a place not all that far from me. In fact, accounts from people living in my home town are that the noise woke many up here, and that there was a definite rumble felt at the time of the first explosion at 6am. I must admit I slept right through it, didn’t hear or feel a thing. I had actually gone to bed just over an hour before, after spending Saturday evening/early Sunday morning at a dinner party with my parents, some family friends, and my wonderful girlfriend, and I think I quite possibly could have slept through a nuclear war…

The best news to come out of all this today was of course that no-one has been critically injured or killed, thanks both to the timing (6am on a Sunday morning), and of course to the excellent reaction and organisation of the fire services. And what’s truly amazing, is some of these pictures. Described as ‘the largest fire seen in peacetime Europe’, some of these photo’s (and numerous others seen throughout the day) do give it an almost apocalyptic feel. Unreal.