Just Emma

Hello, lovelies.             The nights are darker, the heating is being turned on, and that means only one thing. Its officially my favourite time of the year. And today is my favourite holiday of all, Halloween! I’ve dug out all my old and trusty decorations, even if they are very old and ever so slightly battered. Gone backwards and forwards as to what I am going to dress up as. And finally planned on how I am going to eat my entire weight in sweets. I love Halloween! Who doesn’t? A time to bring out all our hidden fears and celebrate them. Why then, am I just not feeling it this year? Have I finally become too old to dress up and eat way too many chocolates? Will I ever watch a scary film and get goose bumps again? Or have I just realised that I shouldn’t fear monsters and ghosts, as humans and politicians are far scarier. Have we been exposed to violent video games and slasher movies, so now we can only see the potholes in the plot rather than be...

Hello, lovelies.               How many times have we all said to ourselves that we just can’t catch a break? A break from a large and unexpected bill landing on our doorstep, surviving Covid to the gas prices going through the roof. Why can’t we just get a couple of months off from one in pending saga to the next? Is this all just down to being an adult? Is this what we can expect from now on? Just waiting for that one bill to tip us over the edge. What if we just worked harder? Maybe get a second or third job? Would that help? Or does that just lead to burn out? Then what? Would the system be there for us in those hard times? We live in a country that believes in having an even playing field, don’t we? Or has the system been set so that we never have the odds in our favour?          I am an avid reader, and for a time I was completely obsessed with the book trilogy The Hunger games. And one of the famous tag lines that ...

Hello, Lovelies.          With the summer well and truly over, and with the festive holidays just around the corner, it’s time to pack away all our warm weather clothes and pull out the winter jumpers and jackets. The nights are drawing in, and there is most definitely a chill in the air. The nights are crisp. We can now all pretend to be dragons as we watch the warm air leave our bodies. The past 18 months have been hard. We have all sacrificed a great deal. But with gas prices going up, and the shelves are once again empty of certain items, can we continue to make these great and expensive sacrifices? Do we heat or eat? All the while that we are being told that we are building back better. And what is £20 a week anyway? Half a bottle of wine for some, whereas a weeks’ worth of food for many. Should we all sing the morale building song, The sun will come out tomorrow? Or have we had enough? And the price of our collective sacrifices is enough?     ...

Hello, lovelies. The term poker face means to hide or conceal our true feelings or intent, and it’s an important tool in our everyday lives. Unlike telling a white lie or two, keeping on our poker faces helps maintain a smooth working day. It can help us to stay on track, not get too annoyed or upset when someone or something threatens to destroy our mental health or peace of mind. But what happens when someone does something in your life that turns your world upside down? If they apologise, do you have to forgive them and go back to the way it was before? Even if a simple ‘sorry’ could or would never heal the damage they caused? Should we always be the ones to let it go? Or can we learn from them showing us who they really are, and we can win the hand by playing our poker faces? I love playing cards. Growing up I learnt to play a game called ‘Shit Head.’ Shit head can be known by different names like Karma, Palace or Shed. It’s a card game where the object of the game is to l...