Its been two weeks since my last blog, but it seems much longer than that!
Business wise, I think it's fair to say that 'things are ticking along'. We've had a steady influx of enquiries resulting in a sprinkling of new clients. To be honest, I am happy with things at the minute. We cannot expect an avalanche of new work given the uncertain economic picture... that said, Rishi seems to have steadied the ship a bit and as such the media seems to be turning its attention elsewhere. We've also got a World Cup coming up, so that should ensure that we don't talk ourselves down too much (aside from our football team of course!) in the run up to Christmas. I recall the last international tournament being played, it was incredible how it lifted the country during its re-emergence from COVID and all the rest of the doom and gloom that the media loves to report on. Fingers crossed we will have a decent run in this tournament, and we can all finish the year on a positive!
Just before my trip to Canada (which I will elaborate a little on further down), I got some awful news that one of our ex-employees had died. Shreya worked with us for about two years, firstly as an apprentice before graduating to become a website developer. Sadly, for us at the time, his passions lay elsewhere, and he had big aspirations to become more focused in software development. He was incredibly talented, funny and extremely likeable. Basically, a top top lad. I had some great banter with him during his time with us and had kept in touch with him through Facebook since he left. My wife and I attended his funeral last weekend, and it was a very moving occasion. If any of his family or friends do read this... everyone at Seventy9 was very saddened at the news and he will always be remembered very fondly. I've thought about him a fair bit in the last 2-3 weeks, and I would be lying if I said it didn't hit me hard. He was only 24 years old. Absolutely not at all fair. May he rest in eternal peace.
The day before Shreya's funeral, we arrived back from an amazing week in Toronto, Canada. Amongst the highlights was a trip to Niagara Falls (pictured) and a meal in the 360-rotating restaurant on top of the CN Tower. Well, when I say on top - I mean as high up as you can go! Both were once in a lifetime experience never to be forgotten. Toronto was this year's holiday highlight for my family and me. As those who read my blog regularly will know, we spend about 50% of our weekends in Norfolk, we also were very fortunate to be able to go to Cape Verde in February. But Canada has been a country I've wanted to visit and indeed it's on my bucket list to tour in a camper van at some point. We do not have anything booked at all for next year yet and will no doubt spend the days over Christmas discussing our options! Holidays though, at the minute are extremely expensive, so we may well hold off booking anything until the prices come down a bit. We pride ourselves on getting very good deals and I reckon the same holiday three years ago is now 50% more expensive. That is not sustainable in my opinion... we shall see!
This weekend we are back in Hemsby again. I am hoping that the Cobblers progress to the 2nd round of the FA Cup after a tricky couple of weeks. We haven't been great in either of the two home games whilst I was away, I do though reckon its just a blip. So as always, I'll keep the faith... and that goes for all of us!
Shane
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