Ice, Fire and Blood!

As the world froze last night I nearly burned down my bender in a gas explosion!
Brrrr it was cold last night - about minus five I reckon, good solid ice on the puddles this morning.  A friend generously gave me a little gas stove yesterday so when I got back to the bender - in pitch darkness - I had a go at firing it up.

I'm a bloke, so obviously I didn't do anything wussy like read the very basic instructions saying "insert this way" with a big flipping arrow on the side of the gas canister.  So I got it in wrong.  I could hear gas spraying out but not work out if it was getting to the burner or not.

Anyway, the burner didn't light.  So I thought if I held a lit cigarette lighter near the nozzle of the gas canister I'd be able to tell if and where the gas was going.  WHOOOOOOF and the bender was full of fire!  I threw the stove out sending it arcing into the night like a passing meteor trailing billowing flame and went outside to extinguish it before it blew up.  I could see flames dancing merrily inside the bender and briefly pondered leaving it to it's fate before going back in and stamping them out.  Fortunately the gas had burnt off quickly just leaving various blazing bits of carboard all over the place.

Normal order was soon restored and I returned to trying to get the stove to work - although doing it outside this time.  It seemed to be covered in sticky grease or something and - working in the pitch darkness - I still couldn't get the thing to work.  I fear it's brief journey through space has done some fatal damage.  Which is  a pain in the arse as I won't have anything to cook with and of course I owe my mate a new gas stove having seemingly trashed his one.

Oh - and the sticky grease which seemed to be getting everywhere?  I eventually worked out I'd cut my thumb in all the excitement and was bleeding over everything.

Looking at the weather forecast last night was the coldest it's going to be for the next few days and I was just - just - warm enough to get a good night's sleep.  I might try and blag a couple more blankets from the nightshelter though just in case.