Film Recommendations 2025

Like last year, here are my top 25 film recommendations out of all the feature films I watched during 2025. In total I watched 106 films (including 4 rewatches), down from 143 last year. My target is generally 104- which is two (new to me) watches a week, which I like to think is a manageable amount. My film watching this year definitely ebbed and flowed, with some periods of watching several a week, including more than one a day, contrasting with large stretches of not watching any for weeks at a time. I hope to be more consistent with it this year, but of late I’ve been finding it hard to make the time for it for various reasons.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the list! This is in no particular order. The title of the film is in bold, followed by the the date which it was made according to IMDb (in brackets) and then the name of the director(s).

1. Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024) Crossingham, Merlin; Park, Nick
2. Hard Truths (2024) Leigh, Mike
3. The Brutalist (2024) Corbet, Brady
4. I’m Still Here (2024) Salles, Walter
5. Flow (2024) Zilbalodis, Gints
6. American Movie (1999) Smith, Chris
7. One to One: John & Yoko (2024) Macdonald, Kevin; Rice-Edwards, Sam
8. The Surfer (2024) Finnegan, Lorcan
9. She Said (2022) Schrader, Maria
10. The Ballad of Wallis Island (2025) Griffiths, James
11. The Perfect Neighbor (2025) Gandbhir, Geeta
12. Lowland Kids (2025) Winther, Sandra
13. Power Station (2025) Edelstyn, Daniel; Powell, Hilary
14. On Falling (2024) Carreira, Laura
15. Pelikan Blue (2023) Csaki, Laszlo
16. Brigsby Bear (2017) McCary, Dave
17. Vengeance (2022) Novak, B.J
18. Tummy Monster (2024) Lyons, Ciaran
19. Julie Keeps Quiet (2024) Van Dijl, Leonardo
20. Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (2025) Han Jin Kuang, Liane-Cho; Vallade, Maïlys
21. Lesbian Space Princess (2024) Hough Hobbs, Emma; Varghese, Leela
22. Bob Trevino Likes It (2024) Laymon, Tracie
23. Sorry, Baby (2025) Victor, Eva
24. Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) Crane, Sam; Grylls, Pinny
25. Bird (2024) Arnold, Andrea

Enjoy and any recs for this year, please leave in the comments xo

2025 in Football

Happy New Year! Right then, straight to the point: stats, stats and more stats!

2025 was actually a really good year in football for both myself and my partner. It was the second best in terms of numbers (I attended 115 matches) since the year 2019, where I did a whopping 182! I’m not sure, if I’ll ever reach those heights again, but never say never… Out of the 115 games, 110 of them were ‘new' (to me) grounds, I saw 461 goals (averaging 4 a game) and my most seen team were, of course, my faves Worcester City Women FC at 8 times.

The lowest attendance was 10 (at several county league games) and the highest was 5,964 at the Liberty Stadium, where Wales Women took on Italy Women in the UEFA Women’s Nations League, back in June.

But, of course groundhopping isn’t only about stats, though I’m sure some will contest that opinion… It is of course about the enjoyment of watching the beautiful game in weird and wonderful places all around the UK and beyond. And, I will say, that my enthusiasm and pleasure for doing so has really been rekindled this year. I think one of the reasons for that is, because we’ve been to more interesting games/ grounds, which is obviously a huge help. Kind of how we used to do it way back when, just pick a ground or game which we really want to go to and then just go to it! It’s really that simple and those are always the best days out.

I think as well, the fact that I’ve been getting back into photography has had a lot to do with it. I love being behind the camera, so I need to keep on top of that and make it more of a regular occurrence in 2026. I have several games lined up already to photograph, so fingers crossed the weather plays nice and the clubs actually get back to me when I email for permission. I’m aware both of those things are out of my control, but still, one should never give up hope!

It’s also been great continuing attending Worcester City Women’s games, as well as being an ad hoc volunteer photographer for them. I love being part of a club in which my outlook and ethics align with so strongly and it’s great to be able to give back in whatever small way I can.

Ok, so time for my top 10 grounds of the year. As always, this list is not an easy thing to compile, but I tried my best. Also, I’m a sucker for a ground with an athletics track, which will be obvious when you read this list! I’m not sure what it is about them, but they always seem to have an interesting looking large stand, plus often some old curved terracing. Phwoar! The list is in order in which I visited, because to put them in order of my favourite, would not be an enjoyable task.

List is below, enjoy! I hope you have an amazing 2026, catch you at a game <3

Twerton Park

Bath City FC 2-0 Tonbridge Angels
National League South, 15/03/25
Attendance: 1073

Victoria Bottoms (phone photograph- definitely does not do the ground justice)

Nanpean Rovers 6-0 Roche AFC
St Piran League Division 1 East, 19/04/25
Attendance: 432

Wakefield Road

Lepton Highlanders 5-3 Greetland AFC
Yorkshire Amateur Supreme Division, 03/05/25
Attendance: 50

GER Sports Ground

March Town United 2-0 Ipswich Wanderers FC
Men’s FA Cup Preliminary Round, 16/08/25
Attendance: 192

Guru Nanak

Guru Nanak FC 1-0 Minster FC
Kent County Football League Premier Division, 06/09/25
Attendance: 51

Kuflink Stadium

Ebbsfleet United 5-0 Roche AFC
Men’s FA Cup Second Round Qualifying, 13/09/25
Attendance: 574

London Marathon Community Track

Stonewall FC 2-1 Harrow United
Middlesex County League Premier Division, 11/10/25
Attendance: 10

Alexander Stadium

West Bromwich Albion Women 1-1 Middlesbrough Women FC
FAWNL Northern Premier Division, 02/11/25
Attendance: 111

South Kesteven Stadium

Grantham Town FC 2-2 Abbey Hulton United
FA Vase Third Round Proper, 08/11/25
Attendance: 232

Moorways Stadium

Pride Park FC 1-3 Derby County Women Devs
Derbyshire County Cup, 21/12/25
Attendance: 52

And for a bonus ‘game of the season’:

Notts County Women FC 0-4 Worcester City Women FC
FAWNL Division One Midlands, 12/10/25
Attendance: 65 at Coronation Park

Christmas Crochet Extravaganza!!

I’ve been a bit quiet on here over the last month or so, because as the title may suggest, I’ve been doing a LOT of crochet for Christmas gifts for my family. Unfortunately none of it I was able to share on here on the off chance anyone saw it prior to the big day! But as that has now passed and gifts have all been gifted (and well received), long blog post incoming. Strap in!

I was very ambitious in the lead up in terms of time I had available to complete what I wanted to (the gifts were not small and were mostly self drafted). And I also didn’t account for breaks/ rest days/ crochet injuries (yes, it’s a thing, my poor shoulder)! Which all slowed me down a bit. Unfortunately because of this, I was unable to finish one, so my other brother will have to receive his in a week or so. If I do decide to take on such a mammoth task again in the future, I shall definitely give myself more time. But as other plans fell through for this year, I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. And I’m pleased I did.

The first one (and the one which I was most excited about) was the Totoro plush from the Miyazaki film ‘My Neighbour Totoro’. This one was actually from a pattern- though I will say it’s the most amazing pattern I’ve ever seen. Full of detailed descriptions, pictures, videos. Everything. If you’re inspired by this post, then you can purchase said pattern HERE. Either way, the creator deserves full credit for the pattern.

I actually did a test first, to create a smaller version (the pattern has three variations included- one is the main Totoro and the other two are the small blue and white ones, which Mai first comes across in the film), because there were a lot of new techniques in the pattern. And I wanted to see if I was able to do it and if it looked good. I actually replaced the blue for pink, because I had a lot of spare pink yarn. And why can’t I just use another colour?! I have ideas for some pretty whacky designs, so watch this space for those…

pictured with an existing Totoro plush I already have

making of

testing out the eyes- I ended up going with the one on the left, which I
created using safety eyes and 100% cotton embroidery thread and a 2.5mm hook

It didn’t come out perfect, but I was pleased with it and confident enough to go into creating the big Totoro design. I used just 28 grams of the pink yarn and around 5 grams of the white (though I did not weigh this). This one took 19 hours in total.

As you can see from the photo, I also didn’t use the chenille yarn as advised in the pattern, because I didn’t have any, but also wanted to see how it would turn out by just using regular yarn. And I actually quite like the effect. I am aiming to purchase some chenille yarn though next, because I’d love to see how it looks all fluffy and cute! Plus, it would be a new challenge to me, because I’ve not actually used it before besides a tiny test piece.

Before I forget, all the yarn used throughout is post is Women’s Institute Hobbycraft exclusive, 100% premium acrylic DK yarn. All using a 3mm hook, single crochet, yarn under/ yarn over technique.

Ok, so now the big one! Here’s a few pics of how Totoro turned out:

And I’ll just say I am immensely proud of him! He looks soooo cute and I’ve crocheted him really neatly. I must say he was hard to give away! But I guess I can always make another. And I will. I’m going to create a Totoro army! The house will be full of him, though my partner may have something to say about that…

This one took 18 hours (getting slightly quicker!), and I used 33 grams of the grey yarn and just 6 grams of the cream colour.

The next one I made was a cushion for my dad, of one of his paintings:

the original painting

Got to be honest, I was super proud of this one too- I thought it turned out really well. The final measurements were around 12.5x12 inch. And yes, I crocheted the back panel as well. Which was a bit of a boring task, because it was so repetitive, but I think the end result was worth it, rather than just sewing the front to a piece of fabric. This one took 29 hours in total, including sewing the inner pillow-like case inner to house the stuffing. I didn’t want to stuff straight into the crochet, because I wanted an extra layer separating it, because I didn’t want to risk any of the stuffing poking through or owt. Should also say that for this one and the next one, I created the pattern using the website Stitch Fiddle. So you can add a picture and it will grid it up for you, like this:

Ok, lastly, was the scarf I made for my brother, of his DJ/ producer logo:

Again, I was really pleased with this one, too! I love how well the text came out and really liked the tassel detail. It would have been better if it was a bit longer, so I guess it could be more of a ‘display scarf’ if you like, but I would have still been here crocheting it, if it was any longer!

This one took 34.5 hours in total. So yeah, it was pretty much my full time job for the last four weeks! And I’m about a third through my other brothers gift, which will be appear on here once it’s finished. Right, enough of this, I’ve got some crochet to do!

xo

I Wish I Was There- screening!

Super excited to announce another outing of 'I Wish I Was There'! It's going to be playing as part of the Kelham Film Club short film festival. The festival is a FREE two day event over 10th and 11th Jan 2026, showcasing a load of local talent. Held at Alder Bar, Sheffield. My film will be playing on Sat 10th, with the event starting at 6pm. Get your free tickets HERE! Love to see you there!

Crochet Cricket Ball

Pretty much the title! Also, hello! It’s been a while. Okay, maybe not- the last post was only nine days ago, but it feels like forever for some reason. I think it’s because I’ve been super busy with a lot of stuff, so feels like more time has elapsed than it actually has. Unfortunately, a fair amount of it are things that I can’t yet post about on here. But soon though, so keep your eyes out!

Before I continue, I should say that the first screening of my film went down really, really well last week at Showroom Shorts. To be honest, I was a bit overwhelmed with the response it received. In a good way. Hopefully that’s a good early sign of things to come for the festival submissions, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. Though secretly (shhh, just between us) I am, because it’s hard not to. Especially when you want something so bad. But whatever, what happens, happens. I’ll keep you updated on here for any future screenings… Here’s me chatting about my film on the night. Photo credit Ben <3

Also, while on festival talk, I was at Manchester Animation Festival the week prior and I honestly had the best time! Seriously enjoyed it all: the films, catching up with a load of lovely people, meeting cool new people and taking part for my first time ever in the infamous Skwigly quiz! Same time next year, then! Thanks to all the staff and volunteers for making it such a good one this year, I really think it was my favourite MAF I’ve attended! Few photos below, where I was candidly captured at various events. The first, me looking like a total nerd watching an immersive VR film and the second one, at the quiz, for balance! Photo credit: Chris Payne.

Now am I going to chat about the crochet ball this post is meant to be about? Nope. No I am not. Just need to put it out there that yesterday I LANDED MY FIRST EVER KICKFLIP!! How about that, eh?! I got heelflips three weeks ago and now these. Love it.

Right, okay dokie time for crochet! All this build up for not much:

It was basically an exercise in using chenille yarn, because I’ve never used it before and really wanted to try it out, with the aim of creating more amigurumi plushies. It’s such a soft yarn, but wow, the stitches are hard to see. They get lost within the fibres so easy, so it’s not the fastest and it’s easy to lose where you are in the pattern, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it if I use it more often. The next task I’ve lined up for myself is to create said amigurumi out of it, to see how that works out. But, that might not be for a while yet- the amount of ideas I have for crochet is honestly quite ridiculous! It’s one of those things where you just keep having ideas of stuff you want to make and the list just gets longer and longer and the ideas don’t stop! I don’t think I’ll ever have the time to do them all, but wow, I am going to try!

I also found out that I’ve been crocheting amigurumi inside out. But luckily I found this out fairly soon after having started it, rather than several months or even years later! No wonder my work didn’t look quite like how they’re intended. This ball was the correct way, but the previous two I made way back when, were wrong. And this one looks so much better. I did under stuff it slightly, but it’s super soft and squishy, so makes for a quite nice stress ball in fact! It’s a nice distraction on my desk.

This one was never meant to be a cricket ball as such, I was just playing around with adding stripes while working in the round, but when I had finished it, it was definitely giving cricket ball vibes! Subconsciously thinking about cricket, I guess…

Crochet Colourwork Tests

Having been completely savaged by the crochet bug, my next self imposed task is to see how I can animate it. Obviously. So with this in mind, I decided to carry out a few tests of different ways to create an image out of yarn. Also known as colourwork. I’ve so far tried three methods, some more successful than others, as you’ll find out below. The first method was mosaic crochet. And it’s safe to say I won’t be using that method for this pattern:

It was either the wrong pattern for the technique, or I was tired and it wasn’t really clicking that well for me. Likely the latter, but basically it just went wrong and I didn’t see the point in continuing through with it. To be honest the technique felt like a lot of wasted yarn too, because you crochet over a lot of the stitches as well. It looks great for some patterns- I’ve watched a fair few videos about it and seen a load of images of how it can look when carried out correctly, so it is a very cool technique, but unfortunately just not for me at this time. Maybe I’ll try again, who knows…

Oh yeah, before I go any further, I should say that this pattern is again self drafted, based on one of my own designs:

And below is how it looks after I was finished with it, after the next technique:

The next method I tried (and stuck to) was tapestry crochet. This felt a lot more logical to me- it was essentially like creating a big, crochet cross stitch! The pattern is essentially the same, in terms of a somewhat pixelated image, but obviously the technique is quite different!

I actually started this one again, because I had created the foundation chain too tightly so it started to fan inwards (not a good look), but I unravelled it and persisted through and completed the piece. Still, I lost one hour, but suppose I learnt something from that hour, to be mindful of the tightness of the starting chain. Including the lost hour, plus weaving in all the ends, it took five hours in total. I used a 4mm hook, and DK 100% acrylic yarn. The finished size measures approx 7.5in x 5in. Here’s the finished piece:

This was before I weaved in the ends:

And because it wasn’t the cleanest on the front, I actually went over some of it with my needle, in order to tidy it up a little and make the picture appear ‘cleaner’. Here is what it looked like pre tidying it up (you can see the changes if you compare it to the finished version above). It’s like a good old game of spot the difference!

As you can see in the photos, I did actually carry my yarn under some of the stitches, because it made for a smoother crochet process. But I learnt that when working on the wrong side, the carried yarn does unfortunately poke through. So in the future, I think I will try the intarsia technique, which is where you use separate bobbins/ skeins of yarn and drop those to the wrong side when you’re not working with them. You do not carry the yarn in this technique, meaning the final image will be cleaner. I also learnt midway, that if you’re crocheting a different colour on the above row, then on the right side rows, you work front loop only and on the wrong side rows, you work back loop only. This again, makes it all look neater/ nicer. I might even have another go at this, but not carry the yarn and do the BLO/ FLO the whole way through.

On finishing the piece, I decided to try another test, because I wasn’t quite that happy with how the finished version looked. In my opinion, the legs felt a bit too unclear and I thought that when this piece is animated, they might get a little too lost within the movement and end of looking like a blurry kind of mess. I toyed with the idea of embroidering it even more, to make the image clearer, but then what’s the point of crocheting something if I’m just going to embroider it? Then I may as well just create an embroidery rather than a crochet piece, so it kind of defeats the object.

I then had an idea of working right side only. This way, the yarn will be carried all to the back, plus it will all be forward facing, so the colour changes will all look uniform and the whole piece should just look neater. So I used what I learned in my failed mosaic crochet attempt, in terms of working from right to left only, rather than turning my work and implementing a border stitch at the beginning and end of each row.

I used all the same yarn/ hook size as above and the finished measurements are pretty similar, though this one took a total of 7 hours, 45 minutes. But, some of that was because I started again for a reason I no longer remember(!) and also because I created an envelope border to hide the ends.

And I’m just going to say here, the border is horrible!! It is NOT to my taste and to be honest, I think it just ruins the piece! But in the process, I did learn a new technique (one I likely won’t use again, mind) and I now know that creating a border in this way is not for me. It’s just not my style.

Border aside, the image in the middle is what we’re really here to talk about. And the horse is much, much cleaner than the first one. The legs are more defined and I just prefer the whole overall look. Comparison below:

But, as you can see, the image is slanting to the right. This is because I wasn’t turning each row at the end and with each row, the crochet tends to shift. I need to do some research into how to prevent this, because if this piece wasn’t slanted, then I’m sure this technique is the one I’d prefer to go with. I also didn’t carry the yarn here, so yes, there were sooo many ends to weave in!

…that aside, the image is one I’m a lot happier with. Either that, or I should do some research into how to create a cleaner image using the first technique. The first way was a bit easier, because you could just crochet continuously and didn’t need to fasten on/ off for each row. Hmm, definitely got to do some thinking/ reading to do around all this. I’ve lined up several videos already about this on my YouTube watch later playlist. Despite my dilemma here, I feel I’m on the right track to create what I want to be making and having only been at this just over a couple of months, I don’t feel I’m doing too badly! I shouldn’t be so hard on myself if things don’t quite work out first time round, plus the learning experience here is valuable too. And that’s why I carried out these tests. As always watch this space, see you next time xo

I Wish I Was There- first screening!!

Excited to announce that 'I Wish I Was There' has its first public outing on Tuesday 18th November, at Showroom Shorts, at (you've guessed it) the Showroom Cinema in Sheffield! The night starts at 8.30pm (until late) and it's always a good time. This is the 14th birthday of the event as well, so alongside the quality films being shown, there's going to be an even bigger raffle than usual, plus cake(!) and more birthday shenanigans I should expect! It's also FREE entry! Bring your friends, bring your enemies, it's going to be a good 'un xo

West Bromwich Albion Women Photos

Sunday (2nd November 2025) was a trip down to the west midlands for West Bromwich Albion Women 1-1 Middlesbrough FC Women, in the FAWNL Northern Premier Division. It was announced at the beginning of this season that WBA Women would play all their home games at the Alexander Stadium, a venue that has rarely seen senior football played. And having driven past it on numerous journeys along the M6, I could have only dreamed of this moment (sad as that sounds)! And a bonus that a women's team is using it, too. It was a very nice atmosphere, and it's always great meeting other photographers- both from WBA were a friendly pair!

This is my 6th photography post since the start of October this year- can you guess that I'm relishing being back pitchside again?!

As usual, few pics down below, full set HERE.