Coneheadjohn

With the spiralling cost of fuel and other essential items, particularly the cost of heating your home, it has been been reported that a further million people will be plunged into poverty over the next month, with half of them children. Many families will be faced will the awful choice of eating or heating.
The UK average spend of food and drink is £40 a week. However many survive on a fraction of this. Therefore to shine a light on this, experience a little and raise some money, My lad and I will be living on £1 a day each on food and drink for a week, a total of £14 for the two of us.
We are going to start this on Easter Monday (a kind of belated lent) and hopefully manage the full 7 days. Obviously this won't be easy but I won't pretend this is anything like suffering many people will be going through around the country.
Almost 2 years ago, David and I launched a campaign on here to raise money for the Derby Mission Food Bank when many people were laid off due to Covid. I am looking to do the same again, with anyone who can afford it donating to the same cause. I am hoping we can raise £1000. I will be donating the difference in what I would normally spend on a supermarket shop for the two of us. 
I will set up a specific DCFC Fans donate account and provide a link in the next couple of days.
In the meantime, maybe posters could share experiences and ideas around this area. Many on here will be able to donate but many posters may also need help, so I hope we can come together and help each other.
I will do a diary entry on here on how we manage, how we shop, what we eat and how we feel.
  

I’d have Mel back with one condition.
That he makes Chris Martin his first signing.

I’d have Mel back with one condition.
That he makes Chris Martin his first signing.

I’d have Mel back with one condition.
That he makes Chris Martin his first signing.

I’d have Mel back with one condition.
That he makes Chris Martin his first signing.

This is going well

Evening all. It's a Meikle update!! 
 
He's been through it poor little guy. And both Mrs VdM and I have been on a bit of a rollercoaster. 
Meikle has always drunk a lot and wee'd a lot. We mentioned this a few times but had been brushed off by the charity. 
Last week our local vet, after some testing, gave us his view that Meikle had chronic kidney disease. Renal dysplasia. Prognosis was life expectancy 200 - 400 days. It's incurable and congenital. 
He was 1 last week. 
Cue emotional meltdown. But to be fair, he said that the tests weren't 100% conclusive and referred him to a local super specialist vet. 
We've just got him back after 48 hours of scanning and testing. 
He's got a birth defect called an ectopic ureta. Basically the tube from one of his kidneys into his bladder is defective. He is leaking urine into his bladder which is backing up and has caused one of his kidneys to start failing. 
The great news is that it can be fixed with surgery. So negotiations are about to start as to who pays. 
His testing cost £3,000 which the charity has funded via its insurance. 
Procedure? Don't know. He's not going to make it as an assistance dog so Mrs VdM has put her size 5s down and insisted we adopt him. 
But she's insisted that I mustn't be tight. So I won't be. He's part of the family. Even though the whole thing hasn't worked out in terms of delivering a useful functioning assistance dog, I'd like to think we've done a little good. 
Here he is sleeping off his anaesthetic. 
Thank you for your interest and kind words all. If the mods want to close the thread then understand and appreciate all their help. 
Love to all 
MoodHoover xx

This is a recent portrait.... Ain't he handsome.... 

The latest Meikle bulletin..... 
He's still a handsome boy.... 
 
He's still having physiotherapy and a behavioural therapist. 
There are a few theories. The most plausible is that he is in constant pain from his hips and back leg muscles. So every time something makes him nervous he's mouthing. 
He was inconsolable the other night with the storm whipping through. Not eunice but the day after. 
Today we got back blood and urine test that showed his kidneys are working harder than they should. So more potential issues for him if not now, then in later life. 
But he's lovely. He's still growing up and now powering round at 32kg he can skittle over Mrs MoodHoover no problem. 
She's let it be known that if the charity don't think he will make it, then we will adopt him. She couldn’t bear for him to be sent to a family that hadn't experienced his issues and who couldn't cope. 
He's part of the family really. Here he is listening attentively to one of my legendary pub monologues..... ?

As you can see, the only way to stop him nervously gnawing his way through his leads is to use a chain one...... ?

We cannot get any sort of doctor's appointment (for the Memsahib) at the moment. A number of doctors are off sick at our local surgery with "It's over", and they cannot get any locums in.
At 7:30 yesterday morning, the telephone appointment booking system was just advising people to ring 111, and the online booking system had been suspended. Those are the only two methods we can start to book an appointment now (No in-person booking any more. You tell the receptionist details of your problem, a GP will then ring back and you go through a triage process to determine the urgency). Both remained that way all day. The surgery isn't open at the weekend so it's either 111, a trip to A&E or wait until Monday to go through the entire process of not being able to book again.

Ours has been back to normal for a couple of months but you can use your holiday ?.
No one has been interested in COVID for months really,it’s over.
 

Got the book on audible a while back and it’s really interesting.
 

You can see why so many championship clubs are in financial difficulties lately - we haven’t been giving them any money for Dross ?

Definitely. According to Transfermarkt, £56million spent between 15/16 and 17/18. Obviously departures and wages come into play but still seems a ridiculous outlay for a second tier club. 

It’s easy to work out why we’re skint.

The first rule of administration, don’t talk about administration.

I nodded off, reading that.

It's from their first album, "Rocka Rolla".

That was an absolutely amazing performance, Graham kicking it on fire and Eric, ooh.  Thank you.
Became a 10cc fan in my mid teens, bought everything i could find with them, my second obsession after The Beatles.
Graham came here in 2012 with his lineup of the band and it was a great gig, standards kept high.

RIP Randy,great guitarist.

John Squires - Stone Roses
 
 

Led Zeppelin, "Since I've Been Loving You" (Jimmy Page) has always been one of my favourites.