Mmmm. Nothing happening next Tuesday.

That surprises me a little seeing it's one year since a bushfire devastated the area.

I know, thanks to the amazing volunteers with the CFA and the staff of the DSE, nobody died.

But surely, with the shire just about the only one to ignore a statewide "thanks" day last year, it's time to mark the occasion.

As I said, no lives were lost but we did lose one home, many sheds and outbuildings and, more importantly, thousands of stock and native animals.

We also lost the innocence of many residents, new and old, and that's something that never returns.

As well, it was a time of great stress for our firefighters, many of whom had spent the previous weeks with the unenviable task of looking for bodies at Kinglake and Marysville.

That's a job that no-one signs up for, and then to be called upon to fight a fire in your own neighbourhood with the same deadly possibilities, is just terrible, in the true sense of the word.

The days after the Musk Vale fire there were dark glasses everywhere in town as people came to grips with the potential disaster while others were unable to return to their homes for days.

Personally, that Monday, I ran to Malmsbury and then Kyneton but returned the following morning to put out an entirely different newspaper to the one planned before 4pm the previous day.

We picked up "fresh undies" and dog food on the way through and didn't go home again until Friday night. Thank you Patrick and Annie.

It was also a time in our history when people's mindsets changed from "we will stay and defend" to "we will leave".

And we have so many people from the CFA, the DSE, council staff and myriad others who set up support centres at Victoria Park and townhalls, to be thankful for.

We want a chance to say thank you, to move on from last year, and move forward with our new found wisdom and hope.

I can be critical, I can be sceptical, I can be cynical, but please can we give our wonderful volunteers _ who worked so hard in our time of need _ the praise they deserve and a chance for everyone to move on from an event that has impacted on our world.

If there's a need for ticker tape, I know where I can find a few newspapers to shred.

And I may be the first, but not the last, to say thanks.