Ration book roundup

I ran a few figures on the conclusion of the "Ration Book Experiment":

I spent £106.30, of which £83.76 was on fruit and veg and £13.04 on meat, although this doesn't really reflect the cost of what I was eating, since all the dried goods and the lard and butter came from store (and, conversely, it includes money paid for chocolate and a bottle of oil that I didn't open during this period). I used 4oz of cheese, most of it very stale, 8oz butter, 4 eggs, 4oz lard, 4oz dripping, and 500ml of oil in lieu of the 1lb margarine I should have had.

In terms of dried goods, I consumed 8oz dried beans, 6oz dried fruit, 5oz lentils, 8oz oats, 1lb rice, 8oz split peas and about 4lb of flour during this period -- and around 6lb of potatoes! I still had 3oz of lentils left over despite my panic at the beginning of the final week. In addition, I had six portions of leftovers in the freezer and another one-and-a-half (half a portion of ratatouille) in the fridge, i.e. meals for another three or four days without cooking anything at all. So I really wasn't short of food.

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Plant casualties

Well, I needn't have worried about my pak choi going to seed, because they are being stripped bare by looping caterpillars :(
Ironically the ones that were smashed by the squirrel are now doing better -- whatever it was that laid the eggs, it clearly didn't get over that far! (And the squirrel has not come back to retrieve its stash or bury more -- at least not yet.)

My miniature rose has dropped all its leaves, although I don't think it is actually dead; there are buds on the twigs. I probably should have rooted out the oriental poppies that seeded themselves in the pot and have now vastly overtopped it... it also looks to me as if I have acquired *another* set of Cumbrian yellow poppies surrounding the rose, presumably from fragments of tap-root rather than from the massive coincidence of my second year's attempts at growing them from seed having failed universally wherever they were sown, yet germinated twice running in that self-same pot where they were not!