Sunny skies and warming temperatures will take us through the weekend as the ridge of high pressure across the west coast strengthens. Highs will climb back to the low 80s by Friday, the upper 80s on Saturday and should reach 90 degrees Sunday and Monday before falling back into the mid and lower 80s by midweek. Mostly sunny skies will also last through the weekend.

Yesterday, I mentioned that they probably did not pour burning oil on castle invaders. For one thing, oil was a pretty precious commodity back then, and it wouldn’t be wasted when there were better alternatives. Most of the oil available was derived from animal fats, with small amounts of vegetable oils. They never would have had enough to mount an extensive defense, especially when you consider castle sieges could last for months.

But the castles do have platforms with holes in their floors (called “Murder Holes”) that seem perfect for pouring some kind of liquid through. In all likelihood, plain old boiling water was used… in particular, waste water. Whether it was waste water from the kitchen or from the latrines was beyond the scope of my research, and quite frankly, I’d rather not dwell on it too much. More on Murder Holes tomorrow.