A message from EM & JB

We're relived to be alive. We believe 22 people in Steels Creek perished. Some of our neighbours stayed and defended their houses, some stayed and couldn't save their houses. Some didn't make it. Horrible.

Our friends and of course families' generosity has been overwhelming. Thanks to everyone for your messages, calls, emails. We're very aware that everyone is keen to help us and we don't want to appear ungrateful that we're not getting back to everyone... we just don't really know what anyone can do right now.

One thing that we do know is that we're very keen to keep happy memories of our time at 916. We loved living there and it certainly was a beautiful place. Many of our friends enjoyed it as well...we're really happy that we were so booked up now!!! To help us with our memories, we'd appreciate photos and most importantly, people's memories and accounts of good times spent there. Hopefully the magic site that Lisa has organised can facilitate people writing about their memories and and including links to web photo albums. We'd love that.

About sending money etc: we're aware that - whilst we have lost our house and everything in it - there are others who really do need support more than us in our community. We're thinking that if people want to send us money we might not use it just for ourselves and don't want to offend our friends with that. If money is what people want to give, we would appreciate it, and they can deposit to our bank account(John Brand) BSB 733082 Acc 589282.

As a priority we'll be wanting to rebuild our music collection -everyone knows what we're like! - especially JB who has lost his drums, all of his vinyls from DJ days, guitar and E-M the piano, sheet music, iPod, CDs and all the back ups boo hoo.

In the medium term we'll be asking for everyone's support to continue to visit the Yarra Valley and help our friends in Yarra Glen with their businesses; in particular Simon and Beth at Hargreaves Hill Brewery and Anita at Delicious coffee.

And people will be able to support us later as well: loaning us a spare shovel or something, just being on hand to help with the garden and rebuilding etc. Everyone got out of harvest this year, hey :-)

Finally, to let people know not to feel obliged or guilty at all if they can't or aren't in a position to do anything at all. As twee as it sounds; love and support is all we need.

Here are some basic details of what happened on Saturday - we can't remember who we have told - we're fine about people knowing, and we'll let everyone know more details if they want later (and when we have a bit more energy ):

We prepared for fire; towels, buckets on verandah, birth certificates, passports etc in a box in cupboard in the spare room :-) By about 5:30pm we could find nothing on the CFA website to alert us to any fires in the area except Kilmore (80 kms away) and we thought we'd get out of the house since it was so hot. Driving down Steels Creek Road we saw some smoke over in the other valley towards Healesville so thought we should not go far, decided to pick up something for dinner and go back home. We were in the Yarra Glen IGA for about 15 mins when saw more smoke which was closer and thought we had better go back to defend the house. We drove back along Steels Creek Road towards the house and fire came up behind us and spot fires started beside the road. We came up to a tree which had fallen across the road and a man and woman with horse float trying to move the tree so they could get through to their horses. Then we could tell that there was fire ahead past the fallen tree so we got the woman to come with us in the car and we turned around to go back and basically drive through the flames but at least the flames lit up where we were (lots of smoke so couldn't see more than about a metre ahead) and JB brilliantly remembered Gulf Road which we could drive down to the east which had open space around it. So we got through to Yarra Glen via Balgownie Estate.

Last but not least, there are some highlights: we know that Milly and her family survived; their house didn't but they did and apparently Milly's escape was close. What a pooch!

We went back to 916 yesterday and saw that Happy Buddha survived the fire... he was sitting there amongst burnt outgarden smiling away, not a mark on him. Previous owners have agreed to help us with ideas to rebuild and make a sculpture out of the steel frame from the piano and... JB loves this one: Lucky the huntsman spider made it through the flames with us in the car and we believe we dropped him off in King Street on Tuesday; a feast for his many eyes.

So, sorry if we have been out of touch and difficult to contact. We've been preoccupied with re-establishing out identities. JB wanted to be Al Gore but they wouldn't let him. I tried to reinvent myself as a Professor with an MBA from Harvard and that didn't work either. We're still E-M and JB!

We'll be back in touch with everyone soon. In the meantime, please do add to the blog and we'll check it when we're up to it: sitting down somewhere in the next week or so with a nice glass of pinot noir.

P.S. Please share with link with friends and people who are concerned as we no longer have everyone's details. Thanks x x E-M & JB