The Emergency Chicken and Other Stories

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ How many 'What if...?' questions do you ask? Em asks herself these questions all the time - often in a negative context. Em and Milla talk about the 'What if...?' questions Em asks, how to challenge negative assumptions and questions and how to stop worrying about the unknown. Life might not easy but you are not alone Do you want to be fearless, but you’d rather run and hid...

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Em and Milla talk about how Artificial Intelligence is changing things, the joy and peril of online shopping and how being online more is altering the way that we socialise and interact with other people. Life might not be easy but you are not alone Do you want to be fearless, but you’d rather run and hide? try to be prepared for everything, but it never quite works out? So do we!! It happen...

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Milla and Em discuss friendships. Milla describes the friendships with those that leave you warm and happy as being like the radiators in our lives and those that are over-demanding, leaving us low, as the drains. They also discuss how you can make friends and gently let some friends down. Life might not be easy but you are not alone Do you want to be fearless, but you’d rather run and hide?...

⁠⁠⁠ Milla and Em kick off the Autumn Season by talking about why it isn't good to cling to habits that no longer help you, why you shouldn't let those habits stop you from trying to do new things and how you can learn to change. Life might not be easy but you are not alone Do you want to be fearless, but you’d rather run and hide? try to be prepared for everything, but it never quite works...

Em and Milla talk about feeling the need to be perfect, how striving for perfectionism can become a problem and why just being good enough really is enough. Life might not be easy but you are not alone Do you want to be fearless, but you’d rather run and hide? try to be prepared for everything, but it never quite works out? So do we!! It happens here, too. Welcome to our tribe! Our blog and podcas...

Em and Milla talk about being squeezed between dealing with the kids and dealing with your parents or elderly relatives, all of whom need help and attention at the same time. How do you cope? What can you do? How do you help them all? What's the secret to juggling it all? Life might not be easy but you are not alone Do you want to be fearless, but you’d rather run and hide? try to be prepared...

⁠ " One Sunday, as I prepped the dinner (a joy given that normally it is a race to see what I can get defrosted and throw together), over the radio came the comment ‘…and this week, some questions that never have an answer.’  It got the rusty cogs of my addled and sleep deprived parts of my brain turning.   The example questions that were put were ‘Why can you never find the TV remote?’, foll...

⁠⁠⁠ "Sabre-Toothed Tigers lived on earth between 23 million and 2.6 million years ago.  We also know that Woolly Mammoths were wandering about at least a thousand years after the first Pyramids were built in Egypt.  Us human beings were spending our time trying to co-exist with these animals and probably under constant threat of being savaged and eaten by them.  To be honest, it’s a complete...

⁠⁠ "This week the Lizard has been chatting away.  It comes when I am worried or when I am under pressure.  The more pressure or stress that I am under, the louder it gets.  It will wake me up at 2.30am, leaving me turning over and over in bed, almost begging it to shut up and leave me alone so that I can go back to sleep.  It’s the voice that is with me when I give up trying and sit drinking...

"When the sun shines and the weather is clear (and not too hot), the Summer is the best time of the year.  Having lovely long days, where the sun comes up early and goes to bed late is just wonderful." Em and Milla talk about the Summer, the great things about it, the food you can eat, the sunshine, having a holiday and having a break. Life might not be easy but you are not alone Do you...

⁠ 'At some time in your life, you will find yourself dealing with an emergency.  Now, we all deal with emergencies every day.  However, these tend to be more of the ‘Emergency Chicken’ variety. The type that is known as a ‘Crisis Management’ issue.  You know the ones; it’s the catastrophes that happen which require quick thinking and improvisation.' Em and Milla talk about what is a crisis...

"I explained that I wasn’t worried about the weather and had no need to panic buy. Whilst everyone was out there going berserk and getting ready for a whole six inches of snow to arrive, I would be ok.  Roads would be impassable and we might never be able to leave the house again. England would grind to a halt. However, I wouldn’t be batting an eyelid... the secret to always being prepared is...

"The secret of the chicken that I keep in my freezer - just in case - is now out there.  Up until now, it is something that I have done for as long as I can remember.  Since ‘as long as I can remember’ happens to be just before my son was born, that means I have been doing this for at least the last fifteen years.  You know what they say, time flies when you are having fun!" Welcome to o...

"Today I won at life.  Not massively.  Nothing miraculous happened.  I wouldn’t describe that afterwards I felt any form of unrequited joy.  It wasn’t that exciting.  I just felt a little bit better and slightly more content. First thing in the morning, after the chaos and pandemonium that is the school run, I like to try to go for a short walk before I begin work.  It’s a tiny thing but it m...

⁠ "I was taught correct typing etiquette.  For me, this was one space after a comma and always, ALWAYS, two spaces after a full stop.  It’s what we did.  It was drilled into us.  I still do it as a habit.  That was until my automatic grammar and spellchecker decided to tell me that every gap at the end of my sentence was too big and an error..... Completely confused by this, I did what we all...

⁠ " Putting off until tomorrow what can be done today has become something of an art form in my house.  Especially for my husband.  Just this weekend he promised me that he would do three jobs that really needed sorting out; the first was to fix a cupboard shelf which had collapsed (leaving me thoroughly annoyed when it caused my best Pyrex measuring jug to fall and smash to tiny pieces), the...

" I don’t cope well with the cold.  If I’m truthful, I’m horrible when I’m cold.  This year it has been even worse, what with the cost of fuel and energy becoming ridiculous.  I’ve been huddled in a blanket for months, whilst the heating has had to be endlessly rationed.  Whilst we have been turning down the thermostat, we have also been re-discovering the joys of hot water bottles and fluffy...

⁠ " The world of work is a thoroughly confusing and mysterious place to be.  Particularly if you are female.  We women have fought many battles for many, many years.  We fought for the vote.  We fought for control over our fertility.  We have fought for equal pay.  Generations of women have collectively banded together to fight for their rights and freedoms.  But put women together in the wor...

"Three questions for you.  Do not over think them: 1.  Are you happy? 2.  How do you feel when you are happy? 3.  What makes you happy? Happiness is an odd concept.  It is an emotion or a state to be in.  Although very clever people have spent hundreds of years trying to understand it and measure it, no one (at least not according to Google) has worked out how you calculate just how happy you...

⁠ "I got a text from a friend this week: ‘Last night I dreamt that you and I were trapped between two tidal waves’. I replied, asking if we had survived. ‘We absolutely did’." Em envies her fearless friends.  She wants to be fearless but doesn't think she can be.  Em and Milla talk about being brave and how the things you tell yourself can help you can get through the bad days.  And...