‘Just grateful we're alive'

IT IS everyone's worst nightmare - leave for holidays and the next day get a call to say your house has been on fire.

But that nightmare became a reality for Glenda Vasey three weeks ago.

When Glenda left for her holiday to Singapore, to see her daughter, she never thought she would return to a burnt house.

"To begin with it was pretty surreal being so far away and not being able to see it," Glenda said.

"I had only arrived (in Singapore) on Thursday night.

"I had left here on Thursday morning and had got there by Thursday night and the following night she (Glenda's daughter) had to break the news to me that my house was on fire."

Glenda said her brother was staying with her at the time of the fire but she was grateful he was at work at the time.

"I am just really, honestly, so grateful that I wasn't in the house and nor was he," she said.

"I am just grateful we are both alive.

"The house itself is not salvageable. It is gutted right through."

Glenda is determined not to let the experience keep her down for too long.

"Certainly there are memories attached to what I have lost and realistically you can't take the memories away either.

"Physical things can be replaced but people can't."

Glenda said she had been blown away by the support she had received.

"I do have to say a big thank-you to the firies, police and ambos," she said.

"It is not an easy job they have by any stretch of the imagination.

"The community has been just wonderful.

"There has just been so much support and I probably still don't know the half of it.

"I am just so grateful to be alive, that my brother is alive and no one from the emergency services was injured."