Sometimes, before I go to sleep, I think of all the yummy things I could eat for breakfast the next day.

“Oh, I can try cheese and toast…I’ll have some of that apple bake mum made today…I can fry an egg and tomatoes…”

But I wake up and I always crave the same thing: muesli, milk and a banana. This combination has prepared me to face the world most days for the past five or six years. But no longer.

Mum and dad came home from their weekly shopping trip with sad faces. “Joan,” she said, “There will be fewer bananas.” She pointed to the two lonely unripe bananas in our fruit bowl. “Those are the last ones for a while.”

Since Cyclone Larry hit northern Queensland in March this year, the price of bananas has soared. Eighty percent of Australia’s banana crop has been wiped out.

“They’re $7 a kilo now!” Mum exclaimed.

“How much did they used to cost?” I asked.

“Well, I used to get them at the market for as low as 79 cents a kilo. The normal price was about a dollar and even the worst case was $2.99 a kilo.”

I am now seeking alternative fruits to accompany my muesli but I can’t imagine anything satisfactorily replacing the squishy sweet goodness of the banana.