I was woken up briefly on Sunday morning by the house shaking. At first, in my sleepy state, I thought it was my 6 year old son getting into his bed. He has a steel framed bed that makes a lot of noise when he climbs the ladder. On second thoughts though I thought that the noise was too loud for just one small boy and then my sleepy thoughts turned to thunder. Not one to be bothered by thunder and lightening I went back to sleep and subsequently forgot about being woken at such an ungodly hour (I wasn't aware of the time but it was still dark out so it was early- I have since found out it must have been around 6ish)

Then I received an email from my friend who lives 4 doors away from me asking if I had felt the house shake at 6 that morning. It was then I remembered Red and his noisy bed waking me! I did think it was a little excessive even for him.

As you must know by now what had woken was in fact an explosion at the factory in Hemel Hempstead about 10 miles away from me.

Today I had a phonecall from one of the mum's at my son's school telling me that the school is to be closed for tomorrow due to health and safety reasons. The black cloud billowing from the explosion site is heading our way and can be seen over the Uni and across from the town. We have to keep our children in and not let them breathe the air that may or may not be polluted- they keep feeding us different stories.

All schools in the county, as far as I am aware, have been closed for tomorrow at least.
It's really upset my son who loves school and totally thrown my plans for a little christmas shopping out the window. My daughter's nursery is also closed so it looks like all three of us get a lie in tomorrow.

Let's just hope that the fires are put out quickly and everyone affected gets back on their feet as soon as possible.

I still can't believe that I was the only one in my house who felt the house shake. I was 10 miles away and it scared me. I have family (or ex family) in Hemel Hempstead who were thrown out fo their beds by the force. Imagine what those right on top if went through. Scary stuff. No wonder some though a plane had crashed on them!