Annabel: Hello. I’m Annabel.

Peter: And I’m Peter.

Expert: Hi there, Annabel and Peter. What’s your problem?

Annabel: We’ve got a son, Jamie, and he’s 25. He’s a chef.

Peter: But he still lives with us because he says it’s too expensive to rent a flat and he doesn’t earn enough money.

Annabel: He gives us some money every month for bills – not much, but a bit – and, you know, it’s nice to have him at home, but we think he needs to be more independent.

Peter: Yes, absolutely.

Annabel: But last week he told us that he’s planning a two-week holiday to Mexico with his friends. I mean, it’s true that he works full-time and we know he needs a break, but we really think…

Peter: Yes, we don’t think he should go on an expensive holiday when he doesn’t give us much money. We think he should save his money, so that he can get his own place to live. Should we tell him that he can’t go to Mexico?

Expert: You know, to be honest I think you’re being a bit hard on him. I mean, he’s only 25. It’s good that he has a job and everybody needs a holiday. My advice is that you should let him go to Mexico, but when he comes back you should sit down with him and talk to him about starting to pay rent. That way he’ll understand that he needs to start planning for the future and to start thinking about renting a flat. But I know from talking to other parents that there are a lot of young people still living at home in their 20s and 30s, and some of them don’t even have jobs. So, in many ways I think you’re lucky.

Annabel: You see? That’s just what I think…

Nick: Hi there. I’m Nick.

Expert: Hi Nick. So what’s your problem?

Nick: Well, I’ve been with my girlfriend for three years. We have a really great relationship although we’re quite different. She’s clever and popular and I’m, er, quiet and hard-working. Anyway, now she wants to move to London, because she thinks she can get a better job there, and she wants me to go to London too -you know, London’s much more exciting than Bolton, where we live now. But I have a good job in Bolton and I get a good salary. I mean the idea of moving and having a new life is like a dream, but for me that’s what it is, I mean it’s a dream, it isn’t real. What should I do? Should I follow my heart and move to London with her? Or should I stay here where I know I have a good job, but possibly lose my girlfriend?

Expert: I think you should sit down together and talk about your dreams for the future, and see if they are the same dreams. If they are, and you can see a future together, then the first thing is for her to look for a job in London. If she finds one, then maybe she can move there first and you can go at weekends and see how you feel about life there.

Nick: Thanks a lot for that. I think that’s really good advice.

Jane: Hello. My name’s Jane.

Expert: Hi Jane. Why are you calling?

Jane: Well, a month ago my friend Susan and I decided to go on holiday together this summer, to Turkey. So we planned everything and, er, I was really looking forward to it as Susan’s an old friend and I don’t see her very often. But the other day she told me that she was telling another friend of hers about our holiday, somebody I don’t know, a woman called Angie, and Angie was really interested, and now Susan has Invited her to come, too. Susan never asked me what I thought! I don’t even know Angie, and I really don’t want to go on holiday with someone I don’t know. What should I do?

Expert: I think your friend has been a bit insensitive and she’s put you in a difficult position. You have several different options. You could say that you aren’t going if Angie goes, but then you’ll put Susan in a difficult position. Or you could just cancel, and suggest having another holiday later with just the two of you. Or you could invite someone else who you like, and then there would be four of you, which is sometimes a better number than three. But in fact, you don’t know Angie and maybe you’ll like her. So, I think you should try to get to know her first. If you like her, then the holiday will probably be a success. If not, then you should tell your friend you aren’t going, because you don’t think it will work with Angie. You know, a bad holiday is worse than no holiday.

Peter: I did maths at university and normally, after doing maths at university, people get a job in a bank or in IT, but when I finished it was the recession and it was very difficult to get a job. I was unemployed for quite a long time. I was looking for jobs, and I applied for lots of different jobs, but they just answered ‘sorry, we don’t want you’, and I was getting a bit depressed. This went on for about four months and then one day I was on a number 49 bus in London -I can even remember where I was sitting -and my phone rang. I said hello, and a woman said ‘Hello, you applied for a job with us a few months ago. Are you still interested?’. So I said, yes, absolutely, I’m very interested. So then she said ‘we’d like you to come for an interview…’ and then at that moment we got cut off because the bus went into a tunnel. And the phone number wasn’t on my phone -it just said ‘unknown number’, and I couldn’t remember what the name of the company was because I’d applied for so many jobs. So, I thought ‘four months of nothing and then when they ring I get cut off’. Luckily they called back the next day, and in the end I had an interview, and I got the job.

Sue: This happened when I was at a conference in Thailand. The conference hotel was amazing, it was in a beautiful national park called Khao Yai, north of Bangkok. We were very busy with talks and meetings most of the time, but we had one free morning, and we could choose from different trips or activities. I was interested in either a trip to see birds or a trip to see a tiger. A tiger, not tigers, because they told us that there was only one tiger in the whole park! Well, I chose the tiger trip, because I thought it would be really cool to see a tiger in the wild. But we had to leave really early in the morning, because we had to travel quite a long way to the part of the park where the tiger usually was -the bird trip was nearer the hotel. So, we tiger-watchers got up at 5.00 in the morning, but our guide said that we probably wouldn’t see the tiger, because you know, there was only one tiger. We finally got there and we spent the whole morning looking for the tiger, but no luck. But we saw some nice birds, and it was fun, so when we got back to the conference hotel, we felt we’d had a really good morning. But then the other group got back, the ones who went to see the birds, and of course they saw lots of amazing birds, but they also saw the tiger! I suppose that day it wasn’t in its usual part of the park. And I thought isn’t that typical -you go on the tiger trip and you don’t see the tiger, but the people on the bird trip see the tiger!