Peanuts

‘Peanuts’ has become an expression for a very small amount of money, owing to the insignificant cost of buying that particular nut. Indeed, I buy peanuts for my feathered friends. I've noticed over the last couple of years that they seem to be getting pretty expensive. At B&Q, I noticed a 1.75kg packet retailing at nearly £8. I decided that as it’s becoming dearer to feed the birds than it is to feed me, they might have to make do with bread. So why should peanuts no longer be a word for being cheap? 

Wholesale costs of peanuts from Argentina have gone up 31.1 percent year on year, and have leapt up 16.1 percent, according to trade magazine The Grocer, in certain months alone. Farmers are changing to more profitable crops and poor weather has been destroying harvests. Consequently, there are fewer peanuts available to satisfy demand, and their price rises accordingly.

Who would have thought that weather patterns in South America would determine the offerings at my bird table? Who’d have thought that Farmer Pedro has altered the diet of Lancashire’s blue tit population by switching crops?

Decisions taken a long time ago, far away, have repercussions. What I do with Christ now will still be felt in millions of years’ time. His offer of eternal life is free, but it’s not peanuts.