'Happiness can be found in the darkest of places if one remembers to turn on the light'
Hi guys 👋🏻
It’s exactly a month since Christmas day, today!!! WHATTTT. CRAZY.
So, here is this year’s bookish themed Christmas Haul 🎄 📚
I’m very lucky! 🤗 and very happy to have some brilliant books to start the yeat with.
I hope you got some lovely books this year! No better present than a book imo 😊
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
Another day, another bookish post! This is my complete 2025 list of booms that I read. So if you are looking for any recommendations, look no further.
I’ve added a little code to sort the books a little and represent the variety of formats I have read in and why I chose certain books.
Colour code:
DNF – means ‘did not finish’
I have put either ‘Audible’ or ‘Spotify’ next to my audiobooks, so if you see that its the audio version.
DISCLAIMER: ’25 books for 2025′ was a little challenge I set myself – I almost read half of the books I needed to but, I did trail off a little towards the end of the year keeping up with Book Club Books and my seasonal reads. But 11 isn’t bad.
It’s a wonderful life: Illustrated Edition
The Teacher by Freida McFadden
I died on a Tuesday By Jane Corry
This Time Next Year by Sophie Cousens
Sleep by C L Taylor
This year’s for you and me by Emily Bell DNF
The Other Tenant by Lesley Kara
A Company Of Liars by Karen Maitland (Audible) 1/2
Bridget Jones Diary by Helen Fielding (Re-Read)
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (Re-Read)
Friends Forever by Danielle Steele
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime by Mark Haddon
With This Kiss by Carrie Hope Fletcher
A Company Of Liars by Karen Maitland (Audible) 1/2
The Doctors Wife by Daniel Hurst
Ward D by Freida McFadden
The Wake Up Call by Beth O Leary
The Boyfriend by Freida McFadden
Someone in the Attic by Andrea Mara
The Girls by Lisa Jewell
I haven’t been entirely honest with you by Miranda Hart (Audible)
The Woman on the Ledge by Ruth Mancini
Best Summer Ever by Heidi Swain
The Tenant by Freida McFadden
The Boy Who Lived by David Holmes
(Audible)
An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena
Never Lie by Freida McFadden
The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee
Return to the Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee
(Audible)
Funny Story by Emily Henry
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
(Audible)
The Split by Sharon Bolton
Traitors Gate by Jeffrey Archer
The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell
Book Boyfriends by Lucy Vine
Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer 1/2 (Spotify)
The Paris Apartment by Lucy Foley
Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden
Little People, Big Dreams: Lenny Henry
Blind Spot by Paula Hawkins (Quick Read)
Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer 1/2 (Spotify)
A Gypsy in Auschwitz by Otto Rosenberg
The Story Spinner by Barbra Erskine (Audible)
Blackout by Emily Barr (Quick Read)
The Mystery Guest by Nita Prose
Strange Houses by Uketsu
The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose (Novella)
The Crash by Freida McFadden
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis
A Slow Burning Fire by Paula Hawkins
Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
Future boy by Micheal J Fox (Audible)
The Intruder by Freida McFadden
All Wrapped Up by Heidi Swain
Love and Lattes at Pumpkin Hollow by Victoria Walters
The Christmas Book Hunt by Jenny Colgan (Audible)
The Christmas Holiday by Phillipa Ashley
The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore (Spotify)
The Cinnamon Bun Bookshop by Laurie Gilmore (Spotify)
Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney
Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone by J K Rowling – Full Cast Audio Edition (Audible)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J K Rowling (Audible) 50%
The Christmas Clue by Nicola Upson
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J K Rowling (Audible) 50%
All We Want For Christmas by Phillipa Ashley
The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore (Spotify)
Not another Bloody Christmas by Jo Middleton
Total no of Book Club Books: 8
Total completed books of my ’25 for 2025′ challenge: 11
Total no of books altogether: 63
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
Here is my 2025 cinema list using my Unlimited card ✌🏼
Safe to say I got my moneys worth again!
Mufasa: The Lion King
With Mum, Tim, Noah, Casey & Dan
Better Man
With Sarah & Tim
Secret Screening: Companion
With Sarah
The Sloth Lane
With Tim, Noah & Casey
The Monkey
With Sarah
Heart Eyes
With Sarah
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy
With Charlotte D
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy
With Mum & Sarah
The Woman in the Yard
With Sarah
The Penguin Lessons
With Tim
Flow
With Noah & Casey
Drop
With Sarah
Warfare
With Tim
Sinners
With Sarah
Hallow Road
With Tim
Final Destination: Bloodlines
With Sarah
Clown in a Cornfield
With Sarah
Lilo & Stitch: Live Action
With Noah & Casey
The Salt Path
With Sarah & Tim
28 years later
With Tim and Sarah
Jurassic World: Rebirth
With Tim
UNLIMITED 25: LOTR The Fellowship of the Ring
With Tim
I know what you did last summer
With Sarah
The Wild Robot: Family films for £1
With Noah & Casey
Fantastic Four
With Tim
The Naked Gun
With Tim
Weapons (4DX)
With Sarah
The Roses
With Charlotte
The Smurfs
With Sarah, Noah & Casey
SECRET SCREENING: I Swear
With Tim
Dead of Winter
With Tim
The Long Walk
With Sarah & Christy
Night of the Zoopocalypse
With Sarah, Noah & Casey
Horror Double Bill
The Fog: 45th Anniversary
With Sarah
Horror Double Bill
The Strangers: Chapter Two
With Sarah
I Swear
With Mum & Sarah
Black Phone 2
With Sarah
SECRET SCREENING: The Running Man
With Tim
Regretting You
With Sarah
Christmas Karma
With Noah, Casey, Evie & Tim
45th Anniversary Screening: The Shining
With Sarah
Silent Night, Deadly Night
With Sarah
It’s A Wonderful Life
With Sarah & Tim
Fackham Hall
With Tim
The Shining
The Sloth Lane
The Monkey
Bridget Jones: Mad About The Boy
The Naked Gun
I Swear
It’s A Wonderful Life
The Strangers: Chapter 2
The Naked Gun
What was your top cinema pick from 2025?
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
Happy New Year 🎉 and welcome to 2026!
I thought I would make my first post of 2026 a book one! These are my top 6 (because I couldn’t choose just 5 😂) that I read in 2025.
I have put them in order from, so my top book for 2025 was…
1. Hotel Avocado by Bob Mortimer
A absolute hilarious read, and a brilliant sequel to his first novel ‘The Satsuma Complex’. He writes brilliantly and they are so easy to read, witty and fun.
I listened to Hotel Avocado on Spotify and it was brilliant as it was narrated by Bob Mortimer himself, as well as some other hilarious comedians such as Paul Whitehouse and Sally Phillips.
2. Best Summer Ever by Heidi Swain
I always enjoy Heidi’s books and this was no exception. I enjoyed revisiting Wynmouth by the sea and this story introduced lots of new and very likeable characters, I enjoyed it alot.
3. The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye Lee
This was a very different choice for me but I loved the ideas and imagination in this story. It was the beautifully colourful front cover that first drew me to it. I have never read translated fiction before so I didn’t know what to expect, but it was full of such interesting ideas and fun. This was one of my choices for our book club in 2025. Everyone really enjoyed this book.
4. The Boy Who Lived by David Holmes
Honestly, this was pretty harrowing in places and a tragic story in many ways, but it was a also a story of amazing strength, perseverance, bravery and friendship. It was a poignant and heartfelt look into the often unseen world of the stunt man working on one of the biggest film franchises to ever be created.
I listened to this in Audible and it was read by David Holmes himself.
5. The Woman on the Ledge by Ruth Mancini
This was a brilliant thriller that just kept you guessing constantly. This was one of my choices for our book club in 2025. Everyone really enjoyed this book. It was an easy read and very gripping.
6. All Wrapped Up by Heidi Swain
Another Heidi Swain and an exciting one as this was her first Autumn themed novel. Back in the cosy town of Wynbridge but in the ‘ber months, it was great to revisit this cosy little town. It was like revisiting old friends. The perfect seasonal read.
Recommendations always welcome!
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
So, I had an idea to document some more memories on my blog. I used to do a lot more of these sort of posts before I started posting more book/reading content, and when I had more time haha, life seems to be busy these days!
Here is my fourth and final quarterly memories update to capture 2025, we made it!!
These are the final three months of the twelve of 2025!
Let’s take a look.
October was a fun month of pumpkin picking, autumn reads, football, trips to London to see Ruth Jones & James Corden at the Palladium and to see my uni friends – all topped off with a Halloween wedding.
The inaugural Ipswich Book Festival was a highlight of October ❤️📚 I went along on the Saturday and spent the whole day enjoying the talks, I went to three in total, visited my local bookshops, read, had some yummy food and bought some books. A brilliant day.
This was my highlights- meeting my favourite author Heidi Swain. Me and my Mum went along to her event at the Norwich Book Festival. It was so cool! She was lovely and she even recognised my Instagram!! Such a great evening that I won’t forget
November saw firework night, the start of the festivities. Lots of christmas lights, decorating, wreath Making, Christmas reads, Christmas nails and the first of the season 5 Stranger Things releases.
A super fun and festive month!
Christmas really has begun, even at the start with more decorating, at home and at work, we went to two Christmas light trails, including our usual trip to the Enchanted Light trail at Colchester Zoo. I went to a Christmas tree festival, did festive baking, Christmas reading. Christmas nails and lots of wrapping whilst watching Christmas films.
Christmas itself was great with lots of family time, present opening, yummy food, laughs, games and relaxing. Perfect.
I hope you’ve had a happy 2025! Here’s to another good year in 2026 – let’s see what it brings.
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
Let’s take a look at this months books.
The final month, Month 12 – let’s go!
Total reads:
3 and a half
Favourite book:
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
As promised, here is a special post to mark me doing 10 years of Blogmas.
Blogmas is a festive blog post everyday throughout December, leading up to Christmas day! 25 days, 25 posts.
Here are some of my favourite memories from Blogmas over the years.
My first blogmas! Here are some pictures of us decorating our flat. This was only our second Christmas together in our flat.. and our first one engaged ❤️
2016 was our first Christmas as a married couple, which is the reason I started my blog, (to document our wedding planning and the wedding).
One of our favourite Christmas traditions, that is always covered in Blogmas, is our trip to our local Rock N Roll Panto.
2017 was the first year that I had a Harry Potter themed tree in our flat (in addition to our main tree) I love it.
I also did a ‘Winter themed’ photo collaboration in 2017. People sent me their amazing winter photos and alongside my own I show cased them on my blog page.
In 2018 me and my husband won his work ‘bake off’ competition with this epic and surprisingly easy, but effective Rocky Road Christmas Pudding dessert.
This was the year myself and my oldest nephew put together a Shoebox for the appeal. He did a great job choosing things that he thought a little boy would like.
This was the first year that I had a Harry Potter Lego Advent Calendar. This was epic and I loved seeing what I would get each day to add to the Great Hall Scene.
Me and my university friends visited Winter Wonderland that year. This was really special in hindsight as a few months later, into the new year Covid turned our worlds upside down.
What a year! A very strange one but we made the most if it the best we could. There were restrictions and rules in place but you were allowed out at certain parts of the year.
One of the things we did was go to ‘Hogwarts in the snow’ at the Warner Bros studio tour. We (me and my twin sister) have always wanted to go (obv) but especially in the snow. It was so magical ✨️
2021 was a crisp, wintery affair. We were still enjoying lots of lockdown and post lockdown walks so lots of lovely photography from those.
Me and My twin sister went to a concert st our local theatre – The Magical Music of Harry Potter. The actor who plays Percy Weasley was there, which was cool. He spoke of memories on set as well as introducing various songs throughout the performance.
2022 was the first Christmas after me and my sister joined our book club. I love book club!
I made a cool book themed present for everyone, a book baubles filled with the books we’d read together that yeat.
In this video is a post I shared stating all of my favourite Christmas books, written by my favourite author Heidi Swain.
Books have become an increasingly big part of my blog over the years and you’ll see many Blogmad posts including book lists/reviews/hauls.
I love celebrating and chatting about different Christmas traditions, these are a firm favourite Blogmas post from year on year.
This year we also started doing a few more festive activities. This was us in London, with my Husband andy Uni friend, and her family. We went on a bus tour of the Christmas lights in London. Very impressive.
Again, traditions are a big part of Blogmas and its content. This is my list of ‘Wishes’ for Christmas day, most being pretty much what we do each year.
Me and my Nephews love the cinema and watching films together at ‘RoRo’s Cinema’ this was a special festive screening complete with festive snack boxes and treats. We watched ‘That Christmas’ on Netflix.
This year has been brilliant so far! More to follow 😊
Here are my Blogmas front covers from the last 6 years. I didn’t do them before 2020.
Which is your fave cover?
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
The penultimate Blogmas Day 😱
Each year I love to have a go at making my own Christmas cards and I try out lots of different designs and techniques.
I thought I would share a few designs with you from this years collection. I have predominantly gone for a hand drawn vibe.
Let’s take a look.
I love the hand drawn vibes, especially of the baubles, with the little gems to add a bit of detail and sparkle.
I love having a go at writing in different fonts too, I need to do a calligraphy course or something. That would be cool.
🎅🏻
He’s on his way!
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
Me and my twin sister LOVE going to the cinema, its literally one of our most favourite things to do and we’ve had our Unlimited cards since we were 18/19! Love that thing.
My husband even got himself an Unlimited card when we got together because I liked going so much so he thought he might as well too haha.
There have been a couple of festive films out this season as well as their usual showings of old classics and family faves.
I’ll leave a link here to Blogmas Day 9 , where I reviewed ‘Christmas Karma’ the new Christmas themed musical comedy – drama based on ‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens. I watched that with my nephews and niece at the end of November and it was really good.
I’ve also watched two other Christmas films at the cinema…
I actually really enjoyed this film. I know in the grand scheme of horror films it was a bit random and less highly publicised but it was enjoyable to watch. They didn’t drag it out like some films do, it had a good flow. It was an interesting story idea that I haven’t seen before and it had quite a few surprising moments that kept it interesting.
My husband isn’t a horror fan so it was just me and my twin sister for this one.
I’d give this a solid 7/10.
This is my favourite Christmas film, I love it. I will never forget the first time I watched this film, it was so far from what I expected and it blew my mind at how lovely and brilliant it is.
I love how cleverly the story us weaved and portrayed to us. The characters are very likeable and its just so lovely to watch.
I love the message of the film… at the heart of it, it just makes you, the ordinary man or woman, want to squeeze out every bit of life you are given.
I love it and they usually show it at the cinema so I try and go if I can. My twin sister and husband came along to this one too.
It’s a wonderful life gets an 11/10
My favourite Christmas films are:
Have you been to the cinema to see a festive film?
What have you been to see?
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Hi guys 👋🏻
The end of Blogmas is in sight! I’m going to miss the festive fun, but we still have a few days of festivities to go!
I have done a few festive nails over the second half of November and into December, and I thought I would share them with you.
I am by no means a nail artist but I enjoy having my nails painted and I like giving different designs a go! Especially Halloween and Christmas nails 💅🏻
So let’s have a look at the three sets I’ve done 😊
First up are a simple set that I did in the middle of November. These are just a little festive intro to Christmas nails haha. I used a new red cat eye that I’d bought and I really love the cat eye effect.
The second set are probably my favourite although it is a close call. These are super festive. I tried out a hard gel this time and loved the sort of nudes colour so I kept that as my base. I then drew on some little festive adornments to each nail.
The candy cane are my fave. 🍬
This is my last festive set and will see me through to the big day and those special festive days afterwards. This is a close second as I like the glitters I’ve used and I also just think my nails look better because they’ve got a bit of length (thanks to the hard gel!)
I did a selection of glitters and cat eyes in festive colours. I then used this whitey/Gray toned cat eye as a base for the nails with nail art on. I couldn’t resist one last bit of festive nail art (and I had to include another candy cane haha)
I also did my twin sisters nails ready for Christmas. I used the same sheer white/silver cat eye as a base for all her nails. I then hand painted a candy cane and Holly on each middle finger as a little festive touch.
I think I’ll probably do another glittery set to start 2026 as whenever I use it I remember how much I love it on my nails.
Hope you like them 😊💅🏻
What nail designs have you had?
Until Next Time,
Roseanne 🙂
Roseanne Byford 