At the risk of sounding like I've got wellies on the brain (and veering completely off topic) I want to put in a complaint to the powers that be.

Here's the thing: this morning I dragged my son to school and then armed with a mid-week emergency shopping list, I headed into town for a quick swoosh around the shops before coffee at Kath's and a glorious afternoon of baking in a candlelit kitchen.

Sadly I have never been one of those frugal women with an internal index of supermarket prices permanently buzzing around my brain. I don't know how much milk costs, (I only know we seem to get through gallons of the stuff), and driving from one supermarket to the next to save 75p has always struck me as nothing short of nuts, but regardless of my ignorance (and laziness) I somehow manage to pull off the amazing feat of always spending much the same amount from week to week no matter what delights I've added to my shopping list...presumably because a stable economy has always meant that guessing a ball-park figure for one item or another has always held me in good stead.

Until today. Today I went shopping for a new pair of very ordinary green school wellies. Wellies, I will have you know that were £3.99 last year and have now jumped up to the quite shocking figure of £5.99. I tutted and bought them and walked towards Morrisons in search of own brand, coeliac safe tomato puree. And there it was on the shelf, beaming happily at me and showing off it's new price tag of 45p which in the whole scheme of things is buttons, but buttons that cost a whole 20p more than they did last week and rang bells of outrage in the distant corners of my mind.

Readers I am scandalised. Carry on like this and we'll all be living on dripping butties and sending the kid's to school in their (darned) stocking feet. Trouble is of course that we are spoilt and the thought of tightening our belts when banks go bust and the credit crunch starts to bite makes even grown women wanna throw toddler style tantrums in the dairy aisle.

And so I came home feeling cheated. And poorer. And in need of frugal sustenance in the form of cling film wrapped cake made from old bananas and the kind of soup made of leftovers that is luckily delicious and costs next to nothing. Get used to it: we might be living on it soon...

Poverty Soup

2 tblps olive oil

2 chopped onions,

1 chopped garlic clove

3 Large potatoes, peeled and cubed.

6-8 florets of cauliflower,

Stock,

Salt and pepper to taste

*

Sweat the onions and garlic in the olive oil. Add the potatoes, cauliflower and a mug-full of stock. Allow to simmer gently until the potatoes are soft then add a little more stock till the consistency is soup-like and serve with a sprinkling of watercress and a few shavings of parmesan. (Or a chunk or six of chorizo, a handful of wilted green cabbage or a spoonful of pickled red cabbage.)

Just perfect for a quick lunch on badly done to days...