Snack attack

Going out? Don't forget to pack your own lunch.

We are getting so many mixed messages about the cost of food at the moment that I’m beginning to become slightly obsessive about it. Tesco is apparently struggling to equal last year’s profits, but Waitrose, which you would imagine to be struggling as people tighten their belts, is doing even better than last year, and Lidl and Asda are making money hand over fist… But we should all be grateful that we’re not living in Victorian times when a basket of groceries costing £93.45 today would have set us back the equivalent of  £1254. 17  in Dickens’ Day.  Mind you you can get a taste of that experience at the British Museum before you even step into the Mummies gallery.  On Saturday afternoon  in the otherwise lovely Great Hall I found what has to be one of the cheekiest fruit salads ever seen  – four grapes, (Count ’em? Yes I did…) four cubes of melon two of pineapple and half a strawberry – cost? Yours for £3! Is this a record? It was such a shame because the rest of the day had been such fun – we borrowed one of the museum’s backpacks full of gorgeous bits and pieces and spent a good hour looking for ancient Olympians on pots we would otherwise have yawned past, and played a fiendish game of ancient jacks with realistic looking bones, and oohed and ahhed over Grayson Perry’s lovely turquoise motorbike and bought a real quill pen for 99p only to be stung in the cafe on the way out.  Or is it just me? Let me know what your favourite “They cannot be serious!”  over- priced snacks  are – Tweet me @LivingwithKids