Howdy fellow Fire’ers! Hope you’re all hunkering down for Winter and looking forward to the festive season ahead. It’s been generally quite pleasant over here. Now we’re working from home (again), I’ve started to get back into the routine of home working. My morning consists of – getting up around 6:30am, walking the dogs at around 6:45am for a good 45 minutes to an hour, to having a shower / breakfast to then getting down to work at around 8:30am ish. I do genuinely feel better for getting into a routine again, even if it is home working.

The business hasn’t really seen much change over the course of the last month. We’ve had a few clients come on board and a few clients that have had to pause due to the increasing pressures of lockdown that the UK is currently in. I hope that in the build up to Christmas many people throughout the UK will start to consider local companies and shops to purchase their giftware and produce from! It would be a great shame to lose this, even though we all know just how easy it is to buy things from Amazon / eBay etc.

So come on then – Admit it!

We’ve already put our Christmas decorations up! Yes, we know it’s a little early, but with the weather being really miserable recently, lockdown and hearing the news about the dread, double dip recession, we wanted to spark some enjoyment and joy back into our lives and so we present a few pictures of the various decorations we’ve put up!

Do genuinely like putting up the Christmas decorations. Have always been one for seeing family at Christmas, playing board games and enjoying good honest company. It’s also the only time of the year where the digital industry does legitimately take a break from work, similar to the construction industry. This is probably why it gives such relief when I know that clients aren’t hammering emails away asking for tasks to be done during this time period.

November 2020 | Investment

How are those investments looking?

Wow wee! I finally managed to break that £150,000 mark (insert flex emoji here!). So pleased I managed to hit that before the end of 2020. The markets have really bounced back – it’s practically the reverse, what I’m experiencing at least, that the news / media portray. This month alone, my investments have grown over £12,430.59 compared to last month! Absolutely bonkers! Everything seems to be going on up in the right direction.

How are those figures looking?

Total Income: £4,868.00
Total Saved (?): £3,375.00
Total Expenses: £1,493.00
Savings (%): 69%

Not too shabby! Managed to really reign in this month given that the last few months have been quite substantial in outgoings. The one thing that I do of course have to look forward to, is the dreaded tax bill come February 2021. Whether there’s a delay on this due to Coronavirus, I’d have to speak with the accountant (I believe some taxes are such as VAT, but the usual PAYE continues on as normal).

Board Games | Recommendation

Given that the garden is having a well earnt rest over winter (just a few carrots still remain), I thought that it might be worth going through some Board Game recommendations! I’ve an avid collector of board games and am completely sold on RPG’s such as Dungeons & Dragons and storytelling games. Sharing these experiences with friends really is the icing on the cake – I’m just amazed at how easy is it to remember stories told in these RPG games when you share such laughter, fun and challenging experiences with your best mates. During lockdown of course haven’t been able to see the majority of my RPG group, so it’s been a bit lack luster. But during the summer, we did manage to get a Adventures in Middle Earth session setup in the dining room.

A quick video demo of the setup that I was running for a bunch of friends in Adventures of Middle Earth (a D&D offshoot).

Recommended Board Game (November): Dixit

Dixit is an all round great game for all age groups. It helps enable you to use your creative mind and can be enjoyed between 3 – 6 players. Here’s how it plays out:

One player is the storyteller for the turn and looks at the images on the 6 cards in her hand. From one of these, she makes up a sentence and says it out loud (without showing the card to the other players). Each other player selects the card in their hands which best matches the sentence and gives the selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to the others. The storyteller shuffles her card with all the received cards. All pictures are shown face up and every player has to bet upon which picture was the storyteller’s. If nobody or everybody finds the correct card, the storyteller scores 0, and each of the other players scores 2. Otherwise the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer score 3. Players score 1 point for every vote for their own card. The game ends when the deck is empty or if a player scores 30 points. In either case, the player with the most points wins the game.

The base game and all expansions have 84 cards each.