Obviously, I picked this up because of my obsession with long distance paths, and the Thames Path being one particularly high up the list. This was a really good read, but it did have me wondering in places - what is it trying to be? There’s a lot of discussion about pub prices and hotel hospitality, alongside slightly bizarre meanderings around the fallout from Brexit. But then there are great river anecdotes, meeting random people and setting up interviews and tours along the way. It’s well written, atmospheric and enticing, but then sometimes frustrating and (as admitted by the author) purposeless. Worth the read, though, for sure.

This volume had a lot of the content from the second series of the TV show - specifically the Paris trip, and the angst around coming out as a couple to their friends. As Nick and Charlie as a couple grow and find out more about each other, so we get more and more invested and in deep with this relationship - along with highlighting mental health issues such as self-harm and eating disorders. It’s all done in a supportive and loving way, and I think there’s a lot more we can get into as this relationship continues (hopefully!) to grow and develop.

Once again, watching the TV show made me think about reading the comics, even though I picked up the second and third volume in the intervening period. Volume 2 is just as good as the first, still in that lovely scrappy fun style and following Nick as he comes to terms with his sexuality and comes out to his mum, and Charlie as he tries to deal with integrating Nick with his friends, and worse, himself with Nick’s friends. A lovely update and now on to volume three!

A really useful guide to having less of an impact on the earth. Rather than coming at this from a shouty zero-waste position, this book is a really supportive look at areas all around the house and your life that you can make small tweaks to have a bigger impact. Of course tiny changes are tiny, but every little helps and as everyone starts doing them, that’s when we’ll see the difference. Some of these things are obvious but some are less so. Great reference book to dip into.

We’re sort of randomly working our way through Jason Statham’s back catalogue - mostly because you always know what you’re going to get. This one was a bit too far for me - it was like an energy drink advertising fever dream. Made me dizzy just to watch the twenty minutes that we did.

There’s nothing smart or clever about this movie but it is such a nice, gentle watch. The stakes are pretty low, even when there is an emergency deep in the forest, and that lets you relax into it and watch the love story unfold. It’s not a great script, either, really, but there are some good messages and moments in there. The group in a circle learning how to come up with three things to be grateful for was fun. Not groundbreaking, but worth a watch if you need a bit of soothing.

This may be a tricky review to write because it’s hard to talk too much about the Apple TV series Hijack without giving away any spoilers. I’m not usually worried about spoilers one way or the other, but actually this series is really helped when you don’t know what’s going to happen next, or who you can trust.

I got to grips with circular knitting needles in the last project, and thought perhaps it was about time I dipped my toe in the waters of double pointed knitting needles - which means I could try my very first socks! I used this pattern for Relax at Home socks which seemed relatively easy and the kind of footwear I would enjoy wearing.

This is an interesting album, the way it’s set up - two halves with the first being penned by Brian May and the second by Freddie Mercury. You can absolutely tell the difference! The first half feels like more standalone songs, more upbeat and poppy. The second half is definitely darker, more elaborate, more Freddy. And yet somehow they do work together, finishing off with the iconic Seven Seas of Rhye.

I’ve not listened to a Rita Ora album before, although I do like some of her singles. This is a pretty good pop album, a nice collection of songs to listen to, whilst not being overwhelming or too deep. It’s kinda weird to think that some of the references in the song are about Taika Waititi but once you can get your head around that, it’s a creative and shiny pop album.

I wasn’t expecting much from this movie, if I’m honest, but it was surprisingly good! It’s pretty predictable what will happen after the initial setup but it doesn’t get there in the most obvious ways, and I really enjoyed the ongoing hate relationship between the two best friends. I’m not totally sure I buy Cameron and Ashton as a couple, but I guess that leans into the premise of drunk strangers in Vegas. Occasionally, the jokes didn’t land well with me, the script seems to think periods are hilarious and some of the name-calling hasn’t aged well. But otherwise, a really fun movie.

This is objectively not a good movie - the premise is weak and there are plot holes you can drive an elephant through - but it was absolutely perfect for entertainment on a super tired evening. Really it was held together by Anne and Kate, who do the best they can with the script they’re given, and actually make it pretty moving by the end. Entertaining but absolutely not one to be recommended.

After a couple of disappointing DNF movies, this was an absolute treat. Goldie Hawn and Steve Martin are of course legends in their own right but together make a dream couple, and the situations in here are so funny, so well done, scripted tightly and completely believable whilst also being pretty outlandish. I loved it, and fell even more in love with Goldie Hawn with every passing moment.

I’ve seen this before, I think, but couldn’t remember much about it. Couldn’t get much further than the twenty minute rule, though, because a) he’s just being Chandler, and I’ve seen that role already, and b) they really don’t have any chemistry or make sense as a couple. So, blah, probably could have got through it but life’s too short, right?

The star power in this movie was the real draw, a huge cast of familiar names and faces. But boy, it was really boring with unrealistic dialogue and a bizarre directing style. Switched off very quickly.

This is the second Hornblower book in a row that I’ve really enjoyed - this time our hero is sent on a difficult mission that requires a lot of decisions and a heck of a lot of bravery. The scenes where they are chasing down the enemy whilst under fire… oof, so hard. And along the way, Horatio finds time for a little bit of romance as well, giving a nice mix of moods to the book.

Members of the Camel Club have actually made a cameo appearance in a previous Baldacci book I’ve read, but this is their introduction and first outing. I found it to be a surprisingly slow book, it took such a long time to get to where it was going, laying lots of foundations and really repeating a lot of things over and again. When it did get going, the more familiar page-turning action was great, and I’m glad to have read this to be able to continue with another series, but I don’t think this will be a favourite.

I picked this up because I had enjoyed Rachel’s three books celebrating the stories of women across different disciplines through history. This is a similar idea, gorgeous illustrations to highlight a topic - but this time the topic is how life on earth works, how everything is interconnected, and of course, how a lot of human activity is threatening the balance of life on Planet Earth. It’s a gorgeous read, but worrying in places, which means its doing exactly the right thing.

Another Tenth Doctor story, this time the audiobook was read by the actor who plays Rose’s dad, Pete Tyler, and it was an interesting one. The story unfolded the same way most Doctor Who tales do - a mysterious situation, a little bit of danger, the sonic screwdriver doing what it does best, the Doctor trying to teach some compassion, and ultimately an ending where everyone learns something. But I liked this one for the added ideas of a planet allergic to infiltrators, and fighting back. We could all learn from that.

This was actually quite a fun movie, with no-one really taking themselves seriously - particularly Pierce Brosnan. You have to really like Adam DeVine as it feels like this movie is built around him, if you’re not keen on Bumper, you’re not going to get much out of this. It’s not smart or clever but it’s fun and great for a mindless evening alongside a G&T.

I must have bought this audiobook around the same time as watching the film, and just like the film, I enjoyed it without really understanding all the intricate details. There were a lot of names and teams and people moving this way and that, and whilst it was tricky for someone not fully into baseball to follow it all, I still quite enjoyed the flow of the piece. It’s read by Scott Brick, too, who always does a good job.

It took a minute to get into this film, because there were a lot of characters introduced quickly, and across a couple of different timelines, but it was a fascinating story about the women behind the man behind one of the biggest toy trends in a long time, and an absolutely classic illustration of the evils of corporations, greed, and capitalism at its worst. But that makes it sound like a real downer, when actually it was a really colourful, snappy, intriguing film, with a great cast.

Finally, I have managed to cross ‘Watch Back to the Future: The Musical’ off my to do list. There have been a couple of failed attempts and I’ve been worried that the universe didn’t want me to see it, but I’ve thwarted the universe and seen the brilliance of this show.

Firstly, this is an annoying album because I like to take the original track listing but this one had two or three to choose from. Ultimately, I went for the 2002 reissue version which is a bit of a copout but that’s what was on Apple Music so it was the lazy choice. I knew so many more of these songs than I was expecting, Sophie E-B had a real run of good bops! There’s great dance tunes on here, and whilst listening I really enjoyed it. I don’t think it’s the kind of music I would reach for, but if it comes on, why not sing along?

This is a weird little album, it’s short and you definitely know it’s a Blur album, it has that iconic voice and sound about it. But I feel like only the middle is any good - the start is forgettable, and the end is not great. The way it actually ends, cutting off like that, really irritated me. But some elements in the middle are really strong, which makes it overall a difficult one to review!

I’ve had this book collecting dust on my digital bookshelf for a long time now, and decided to get it over with. I thought the ungrateful whining diary of a man granted the gift of travelling the world to see the seven wonders wouldn’t really thrill me anymore, and I was right, although it was nowhere near as bad as I’m making it sound. It is funny in places, and it was a really quick and easy read, but ultimately it’s not something I would choose to read now.

I had never heard of this film but I’ve seen it mentioned a couple of times recently and it caught my attention - mostly because of the epic cast. It was so good! I was in exactly the right mood for a sort of action adventure drama caper thing, and this is the perfect film to fit that bill. The cast is great, they seem to be having a lot of fun and no one is taking themselves or the plot too seriously - they work together well, and despite the calibre of talent on screen, don’t have egos about it.

Another great Mrs Pargeter mystery novel, this time our intrepid heroine has joined a keeping-up-with-the-joneses style neighbourhood and spends some time figuring out each of her neighbours, before realising that one of them killed the person who owned her house before her. She naturally gets very involved in the investigation, and gets to the answer well ahead of the police, with a little help from the friends of her late husband. An enjoyable read, and another cosy mystery solved!

If you mention Lightning Seeds to me, of course my first thought is that football song, but as we’ve been watching 90s Top of the Pops episodes, I’ve realised there’s a lot more to them than that - and what there is, I really like! I knew more songs on this album than I would have guessed, and I really liked the whole thing, this is a guitar band sound that I’m completely on board with. More, please!

The last Jason Mraz album I listened to was a bit too loved up and saccharine for my tastes, so I was nervous going into this one. It’s toned down a bit, thankfully, whilst still being a feelgood album, so a lot better to listen to. But, if I’m really being honest, nothing stood out on there, no super catchy tunes, and I think I’ll have forgotten this one quite quickly.

For some reason, this story didn’t grab me as much as some of the previous ones did, although when I did start to get into it, it swept along nicely. Some interesting themes towards the end - protecting art, food sustainability, and of course how poorly Africa has been treated. Not necessarily what you’d expect from Doctor Who but it never hurts to cover new ground.

It lived up to my own self-imposed hype and was really good. Elements of it maybe haven’t aged as well as you’d like, even though it’s only been twenty years, but still, it’s another one of those fun teen girl high school rom-com movies that are just a good watch. So much of it reminded me of Pitch Perfect, too, it must have inspired quite a lot of that movie.

I really loved this book. I listened to the audiobook read by the author, and it’s just such a wonderful, difficult, moving story about someone trying to find themselves, understand themselves, make their way in a world where they don’t necessarily fit into ‘normal’ (whatever that is). Tom is hilarious all the way through, obviously, and I recognised bits from his standup too, but there’s also a lot of heart and sharing difficult things which really make you think.

Another Amazon original short story by the master of twists, turns and thrillers. This one is a pretty simple story of a cop investigating potential bombings which are indicated by use of poetry. So we dip into a bit of poetry theory and thwart a couple of dangerous attempts at terrorism and then there’s the excellent twist at the end. A fab short read.

I listened to the audiobook of this, which was less of the pair reading out their book, and more of a podcast style chat between them. I’m assuming they cover the same info that is in the physical book but it’s definitely more of a conversation between friends, which was a lot of fun to listen to. I don’t care so much about the fishing part but even the bits where they’re talking about the actual passtime were still fun because the pair make such an entertaining partnership.

This book too me so long to get through, it’s pretty long but also quite dense - a lot of agencies and dates and countries and they did this, so we did that, etc etc. Every time I thought I was going to stop reading though, which happened a few times, there was a nugget of information that I really loved. The way different agencies failed to work together, or loading up submarines with listening technology, or how everything is developing with so much modern data floating around. A bit of a slog but overall quite interesting.

Gene Pitney is a sound from my younger days as my parents would listen to him often and I know a lot of the main singles. I figured it was worth starting at the beginning of his journey, and this album has a few great tracks on with the rest doing a good job of supporting the main. I didn’t realised Town Without Pity was from a film and reading the synopsis it sounds pretty brutal, so makes a lot of sense why that song is so depressing. Great voice though and the start of a fantastic career.

Before listening to this, I’d seen interviews with Kelly that said she didn’t want this to just be a divorce album but more the story of a relationship from start to finish. I’m afraid to say, it comes across as a divorce album - but it’s not an angry hate-all-men option, it’s just a sort of depressing tribute to the end of an era. The songs are all okay, but there are no great anthems on there to pull it up a notch or two. Completely listenable but not the best.

This is a great book - I’m lucky enough to have a bit more space than the three square feet discussed but even with that in mind, the book is really useful for thinking about what things to grow together, and what you can plant in succession to make the most use of any space you do have. A really useful reference to help with a bit of vegetable plot planning.

Have you watched The Muppets Mayhem on Disney+? You may be thinking ’no, of course not, why would I’ but I’m here to tell you that you absolutely should. I wasn’t aware of Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, even though by all accounts they’ve been around for nearly fifty years, but their comedy musical series that was released in May was surprisingly brilliant viewing.

I love the two big Libertines songs, the first being the first track on this album, but where is Don’t Look Back Into the Sun? Turns out that was a non-album single. I hate those in the context of this album adventure! Anyway, the rest of the album is fine but it doesn’t quite live up to the opener, so worth a listen but not something that will live with me forever.

I first became aware of Maisie Peters via the soundtrack to Trying, one of Apple TV+’s best and underrated shows. That was very much simple, singer-songwriter ditties, whereas this full album is much more poppy with fuller production and more to say. I really liked the album and it grew on me even more on a second listen so I think a few more times through and this will be a real staple on the playlist.

Convoluted mystery and I guessed the twist before the main characters got to it, but I did enjoy the twists and turns, and it’s written in such a way that you can’t help keep on reading to see what happens next.

Almost a year ago, I wrote about a tweak to this very website that split off the films into their own sub-site, to try and speed things up as a publisher. It turns out, the more you write, the more a static site generator struggles to keep up. Well, fast forward to the present and I’m very happy to say the films are back home where they belong - all within mrschristine.com. It’s only a slight change but it makes a big difference - the films appear on the homepage now, in all the same feeds, and in the More to Explore section on the sidebar.

This is a really hard film to review because the good stuff was exceptional but the bad stuff was - oof. I honestly came out of it saying I would rather watch Eternals, and that’s saying a lot. I loved the banter between the gang, Drax and Mantis continuing to be a brilliant comedy duo, Quill going through many emotions, and Nebula growing as a leader. The music was brilliant, and the visuals were all very well done. But honestly, I could barely cope with the flashback stuff. Fine to be raising awareness of animal experimentation but there was so much of it, and the juxtaposition from that to someone in the present day being funny meant I couldn’t appreciate that comedy as much as it deserved. After each flashback I was just wanting to switch off and do something else… every time.

Julia Bradbury has walked all over the UK and made various TV episodes about her adventures, but one that has always stuck with me is the Worcester & Birmingham canal walk. Julia split the nearly 50km walk into a two day mission, stopping off at Tardebigge to break up the two halves. I finally got organised and kicked off this walk, but only did about 10km in the one session, so it’s going to take me a few more than just the two days. Never mind though, it’s an interesting walk and so far worth it!

What a lovely film this is. You never quite know what to expect when delving back into the archives and watching a classic black and white movie - sometimes they can be quite stuffy, but this one was wonderful. The story is pretty light, the motivations not deeply explored, and the setups are a bit contrived, but Hepburn and Peck absolutely smash through any problems there might be with the script with their individual personalities and their combined chemistry. A real gem.

I’m still learning a lot about yarn, the different types and weights, materials and measures, the fact that they appear to be sold in grams rather than length, and that kind of thing. But I do like perusing the huge variety of colours and yarns available, and was happy to find the above in store. Yarn made from recycled bottles is genius, isn’t it? What a great use of bottles that would otherwise just be thrown away. The texture is a little bit different to other yarns but I think you would get used to it quite quickly, and they’re not all going to be like this specific one, either.

This little one was less than 1cm long, but the iPhone picks up so much detail!