We were medium happy with the first Ice Age movie, and having scooped up the rest of the pack in a Blue Sky bundle, we figured it was worth watching the sequel. I think I liked it more than the first, a serious situation about climate change lends itself to an interesting and funny story - animals on the move, alongside being the last of your species (or not), and believing you’re one thing when it turns out you’re another.

This is the weakest of the animations we’ve watched so far - both story-wise and in terms of visuals. Having already enjoyed the Penguins movie, I was naturally disappointed about how much the penguins featured in this, they were the stars of the show and criminally underused.

People love this movie, and it’s good but I have to admit I wasn’t completely blown away by it all. There was some underlying flaws which irritated (the kid was obsessed with being as good as the others but didn’t bother trying to get fitter or anything? And why didn’t the dragons just fly away from the massive dragon they were all scared of? What was keeping them there?).

So, the biggest question is, why have I not watched this before? It’s a great big fluffy adorable panda for goodness’ sake? But, righting that wrong now, thank goodness the film stands up to the cute main character. Good story, great cast, fab animation, lots of fun jokes and of course, lots of great wisdom to take away. It did feel a bit like Star Wars goes to China but I loved it.

I’d never particularly heard of this film, but it was an easy movie to sit through at the start of what became a huge off-sick-binge-marathon. A solidly eighties film, entertaining enough, but it didn’t quite stand up to something as famous as ET.

I was kinda hoping to really like this album, what with Rod Stewart being a legend and all. I like the songs that I already knew, the classics, but the rest of it wasn’t that interesting. It’s a shame but I’m glad I gave it a go.

This was an okay album, listenable, but I didn’t really rate it as much as I had been hoping to. Missing U is a great song, but the rest of it kinda pales into comparison. Not memorable but worth a go if you’re a Robyn fan.

I think this is a book that we read in school, but if that is the case, I don’t remember very much about it. I had a vague feeling it was a difficult read but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I loved the way it started with just a small boy being dumped in some long grass, and gradually his world expanded more and more until you get to the end where there’s a whole adult life still to be explored.

An interesting piece about film credits aired on Marketplace last week, discussing why the in- and out- credits on films have gotten so much longer than previously. It explained why this has occurred and started with a look at the closing scroll on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. “The credits last a whopping nine minutes and thirty seconds, that’s an addition of more than three minutes over the original 1993 Jurassic Park…

I don’t remember why I bought this because I haven’t yet seen the TV show and was only vaguely aware of the phenomenon. But I’m glad I did buy it because it was actually a really good read. I wouldn’t have said that historical Cornish fiction would be my cup of tea, but I liked it. There’s a detached way of telling the story that I really like, whilst we sometimes get a glimpse inside the character’s head, for the most part we have to infer what their motivation is.

Well this is just a great classic band, and the disco numbers on this album are untouchable. I wasn’t quite so keen on the instrumental stuff but that’s just me, really, and not a reflection on them. I’m interested to hear more of Chic and find out if it’s all quite a lot of the same stuff, or if they progress in any way.

Great album, this one. I sort of lost track of Amy Shark after she was featured as a Beats 1 Up Next artist, but realised I hadn’t listened to the album. It was brilliant and I’m now annoyed that I didn’t listen to it last year as it might have appeared in my top five somewhere. Great songs, lovely music, and it’s quite an unusual, offbeat and unique sound in the current climate.

This game just keeps on delivering. It’s getting harder as we progress, obviously, but then you get moments like this that are so worth it!

One of the things that brightens an otherwise dull January is the return of tennis. Things in tennis-land go quiet in December, once the finals are all complete and players are taking a well-deserved rest. But the WTA swings back into action in January, and we are already saturated with coverage. Brisbane, Auckland, Shenzhen and some bonus Hopman Cup were all available on our screens this past week. With a year of the ups and downs of the tennis rollercoaster ahead, here are five things I’m looking forward to:

There are lots of articles written at this time of year looking back on the months gone and looking forward to the next twelve, and I’ve been intrigued by the variety of “best upcoming films” that have been touted. How many of them am I looking forward to? I had a browse through a few articles (Wired and The Guardian, in particular) and picked out the films that stood out to me.

Before we get into the album adventure for 2019, it’s worth a quick reminder of why this project even started and if we have made any progress on the original premise. Three years ago, it all kicked off when a conversation on Peter Kay’s Car Share caused a real life debate in our household. I was on Kayleigh’s side, that you could have whatever album you wanted as your favourite, whether it is a compilation or not. Mr C was firmly on the side of Peter Kay/John, who rejected the idea of a compilation album being eligible for selection as your favourite.

I’ve seen a lot of debate recently about the usefulness of new year’s resolutions - are we putting too much pressure on ourselves? Are we pushing for hard to achieve activities when we should be revelling more in what we have and who we are? I think there can be an element of this and I can respect those who don’t care for a resolution one way or the other. I personally think, however, that it’s a great time of year to consider what you’ve done and what you might like to do in the coming months. Self-reflection can be useful.

From a quick, refreshing walk around an RSPB nature reserve. I know the camera in my phone isn’t ideal for this kind of photography, but I still like the patterns created.

I had such a rollercoaster with this album, was looking forward to it, then was mad that it wasn’t available, then avoided it for as long as possible. Actually, I liked it. First listen through, by the end I was like ’enough angst already TayTay’ but on the second listen it started to grow on me. Some of those songs do get stuck in my head though.

An alright album, this one. I’m a bit surprised by how massive Post Malone is, everyone seems to be talking about him. The album didn’t blow me away, a couple of good songs on there and generally a solid listen, but not a huge deal in my eyes.

When we purchased Shadow of the Tomb Raider, we opted for the season pass to include a handful of future downloadable content releases. Two additional tombs were available by the time we settled down for our Christmas break, and it was 100% our plan to raid them over the festive period. Except, then, Sony had a sale and we bought Spiderman and now it’s like Lara who? I had heard people raving about this game and was interested to see what it was like, but I am really so very fussy when it comes to Playstation Games, there’s not a lot that holds my interest.

For the second year in a row, Mr C’s top five lists have been limited to songs rather than both music and films - and that’s partly because we spent a lot of the year watching 80s movies, and partly because he could only think of Black Panther as a stand out watch. I don’t think film-land is so bad but hey, this is his space to get listing so please find below, Mr C’s thoughts on the year in music, followed by the top five songs from the past twelve months, and finally the shortlist from which he was choosing.

The BBC aired a one-off hour-long comedy this Christmas, starring Stephen Merchant and Asim Choudry as an unlikely duo travelling hundreds of miles to find a sought-after toy for the former’s kid, and featuring plenty of humour and emotional moments along the way. I loved it so much, I wished I was Film Watching it as I went along - then I realised, I can sort of do that anyway! Ah, having a blog is excellent.

Hooray and eek in equal measure, it’s time for a round up of my year in albums! Another 100 albums listened to and enjoyed (for the most part), hours of songs consumed and pretty much the same amount of time deciding which belong in my top five of the year - and which, if any, can break through into my top ten. I feel like it’s been a good year for music, perhaps not as strong as last year, but solid. Lots of good albums were released but I found there were many that I enjoyed but had just one or two things that sort of put me off: too short, too long, one dodgy song, a change in tone that didn’t fit, that kind of thing. It’s interesting for me to feel this way because the whole point of this adventure was to teach me about the concept of an album, and to be picking up reasons why it’s not quite working for me means I’m obviously starting to understand what an album is.

Really loved this! It’s one of those adorable but quirky rom-coms, where you can’t quite believe what is happening but are completely swept along for the ride. I fell in love with Jude Law a little bit, but was bowled over by the concept of Jack Black as a romantic lead - and he pulled it off!

I had to put my ’learn Swift’ project on the backburner for the last few weeks but I’m catching up again now we have a few festive days of freedom. That’s what most people do, right? Spend Christmas afternoon digesting mince pies and learning how to code? Last time I wrote about finishing up the first course on Ray Wenderlich’s iOS path and moving on to the second which was more about Swift. I’ll admit, I found that one a touch harder than I was expecting - some of the concepts seemed a bit unnecessary for this stage in the course (still being a total beginner), and they also used not-so-simple maths concepts as a way to demonstrate some of the coding tricks. It was hard to relate, so I had to keep stopping and pausing and thinking about what it would mean if I was making my own app.

Well, yea, this one wasn’t as good as the first one. We watched them back-to-back on Christmas Day, and that probably didn’t help because we liked the first one so much (rubbish but great!) that the second one just didn’t live up to its predecessor.

Was absolutely expecting this to be one of the rubbish but brilliant Christmas movies and that’s exactly what it was. The story was far-fetched, but kinda fun, and it was a laugh to guess the twists and turns and how the story might unfold (we also managed to write a better twist ourselves as we went along, but hey, simpler is probably better).

So, I’ve never cooked Christmas dinner before. To be honest, my experience of cooking roast meat of any kind is limited. A chicken or two, maybe a ham at some point, and that’s the limit. I’ve really tried to up my cooking game this year, though, as we start to focus on our health a bit more than we have previously. With that in mind, when HelloFresh started advertising their Christmas box, I was keen to get involved. Family logistics meant it would have to be devoured before Christmas Day rather than on the big day itself, but I was still up for the challenge. The benefits of getting the box are everything you normally get with HelloFresh but amped up for Christmas:

Blimey, this wasn’t what I was expecting at all. Things to like: that it’s about two princesses, and they aren’t squabbling or fawning over a prince (well, kinda are but not in the way most Disney’s go). Also, the snowman, who I loved except am also traumatised by because his one desire is heat and that bit by the fire, oof, no.

We’re totally on board with the Netflix Christmas Universe and were happy to settle in for another relatively cheesy movie about kids and Santa and Christmas. This was a complete revelation - it was brilliant! I knew we were in for a better than expected time when it became clear these were two child actors who could actually act and weren’t going to be annoying.

Somehow, I managed to miss the fact that Amazon launched their new Wardrobe service for Prime members a few weeks ago. Instead, it only popped up when shopping for something else, but it was very quickly apparent this was something I wanted to try. Shopping is not one of the most fun experiences for me, particularly for clothes or shoes or anything like that, so whatever can make that easier, quicker, just less hassle, then I’m on board.

Aww, a nice Christmas story to read over the festive build-up, only actually there’s quite a lot of darkness in this one. A war reporter is travelling long distance by train across America, and finds himself not only finding interesting characters that he can make a story out of but becoming part of the story himself. Long-lost faces, surprise visits, a thief, and some severe weather all play a part in the narrative.

When I read Not Going Out were doing a Christmas Special episode, I was very happy. Love this show, and any excuse for some more of Lee Mack’s fun wordplay is good enough for me. When I read on to see it would be a live show, then I was in two minds. Live shows are good, the additional adrenaline of ‘will they, won’t they mess up’ is an intriguing extra element, and it’s something to talk about whether it goes well or not.

This was a surprisingly good thriller, I’ll be honest and say I wasn’t expecting too much because I’m sort of over the genre where an ancient something is detected through a series of puzzles so that the good guys get it before the bad guys do. This was that genre but it was a good story, told well, and a fun ride.

It’s only natural that with a growing interest in the South West Coast Path, I sought out books from those who have walked it already. There are a few, but this one seemed like a good place to start. Here we have tales of a walk split into two sections but still done properly - walking miles each day and stopping at B&Bs each evening.

A good book, this one, a guide to living life in a calm and happy fashion - acknowledging that there are bad times as well but they can be dealt with. Fearne leads us through various topics, like being kind to your body, meditations, recipes, good friends, work/life balance, with a scattering of activities to be that bit more interactive.

Ooh, loved this. I’ve seen it once before, a long time ago, and I remember it being good but vaguely being disappointed by the ending. I think that might be why I’ve never suggested we watch it before and Mr C has never seen it. But it arrived in a film bundle and we needed a brief respite from all the Christmas stuff.

Let’s start at the beginning, Mr C is absolutely fuming at the title and it’s fair to say that the movie is mis-named. Charlie didn’t invent Christmas, more like brought it back into fashion.

I desperately didn’t want to give up on this one because I gave up on Blues Brothers early too, but unfortunately it seems John Landis just isn’t for me. The story is so slow, it took ten minutes for three characters to get up and say good morning to all their people.

This was good, we’ve waited a whole year to be able to watch it so thankfully it wasn’t a disappointment. It was funny in places but it wasn’t perfect. I don’t remember if I thought this during the first film, but Mila’s character really was the weakest one. And has anyone counted the number of times she said ‘guys’ in this?

I really liked this! Mr C has been talking about Peter Gabriel for a while now, every now and then pondering whether to pick this album and finally it gets its chance. There’s a nice selection of songs, most slightly different from each other, but with some really good ones tucked away. Sledgehammer is the main one, of course, but I thought Don’t Give Up was just lovely.

I’ve been looking forward to listening to this since it was released, but it’s always dropped down the order because I knew exactly what it was going to be like - and it was as predicted. Another solid Imagine Dragons album, stacked full of great songs, but sounding very much like the previous work. If you bundled Evolve and Origins together, they would make one cohesive mega album. Still good though!

This wasn’t quite as good as I hoped it was going to be, but it was entertaining enough and certainly one of those schmaltzy Christmas films that we were looking for.

I haven’t seen the original cartoon version since I was a kid so I’d actually forgotten a good chunk of the story, although remembered how lovely some of the songs are. Great cast, lovely story, quite a lot of shots where you just know nothing you’re looking at is real but I guess that just adds to the magic-ness of it all.

Mm, disappointing. Good cast but they don’t have a lot to work with here. The film can’t quite decide whether it’s a comedy or a drama. It’s not funny enough to be a comedy, but not intense or moving enough to be a drama. There are moments of both but it feels a bit disjointed and odd.

Thoughts on this one: The trailer makes it look terrible, but actually it’s a really good film. Don’t get me wrong, it’s derivative of everything and barely has an original idea in there, but it’s still very entertaining and a very well-made adventure. Sometimes you just want to watch a film like Die Hard.

Really lovely film, this one. A beautiful little indie work featuring the wonderful Nick Offerman. I liked that his character had plenty of challenges to work through, and had his moments of sadness, but it wasn’t a morose film, there was a lot to like and be happy about.

We watched this film last year, one of those that we put on the TV as background noise and ended up for the most part just sitting and watching. So this Christmas, we made it an official Film Watch entry, and loved it all over again!

Lovely Shania produced another album with lots of great crossover country/pop tunes, and there’s not a lot to dislike about this. The only thing that raises question marks is why there are three different versions - country, international, and your regular pop. And the mix and match that goes on in Apple Music is crazy. But I like what I heard and I still love her.