Rats ate my barley, badgers squashed my wheat, and I had so many fried eggs I thought I'd have a heart attack!

THERE were plenty of lumps and bumps in Max Cotton's year of total food self-sufficiency - potato blight, rat infestations, hunger and a raging obsession with weather reports. But it is 'Lemon-gate' that still jangles the most. Because, one moment, the last lemon of the three-lemon harvest produced by Max's single, small, waxy-leafed lemon tree was safely stashed in the family fridge. And the next, it was gone. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]