After a warm and sunny summer it felt appropriate that we woke up this morning to grey skies and drizzly rain. And, of course, inevitable that the rain cover on the new buggy promptly broke. It was a bit of a squelchy school run, but that didn’t dampen Anna’s enthusiasm at all. She’s been a bit nervous about the big move up to Juniors over the summer, but then getting together with some of her friends at the park last week for a class picnic, and then again yesterday for a cinema ‘n’ Pizza Express birthday party seemed to remind her of how much fun she has at school with her friends, and excitement took over from nerves.

One of the children at the party who has an older sibling told everyone that they had to have their own fully equipped pencil case, so we had an emergency trip to Wilkos yesterday afternoon. I wasn’t exactly reluctant – I absolutely love buying new stationery, and in between the pencils and rubbers I also managed to sneak in a couple of pretty little notebooks for me. Ahem. Oh, and a full set of multi-coloured pens. Husband did question the necessity for those given that Anna isn’t allowed to write in pen at school yet, and when she does it will be with a specially approved ‘handwriting pen’, but I thought they might come in useful for, ummm, stuff. And they’re so pretty!

Having been really looking forward to Anna going back so that I get that golden nap-time window all to myself each day and can start to try and organise the chaos that our lives and home have descended into over the summer, inevitably Sophia fell asleep in her (damp) buggy at 9.10am just after dropping Anna off. Grr. There’s no point fighting it, so instead we splashed down to Boots and I cheered myself up with a new nail varnish (Rimmel, ‘London Bus’ – a girl can never have too many red nail varnishes). Of course she then wouldn’t settle in her cot for an afternoon nap, so I ended up letting her amuse herself playing with a feather duster and a handful of fridge magnets while I hoovered, before setting off with the buggy to walk her to sleep for another little nap to prevent an evening meltdown. So much for time to myself for organising everything!

I really missed Anna as well, and the house felt very quiet with just Sophia and me in it. Thanks to my MIL looking after Sophia, though, I got to go and pick Anna up by myself and take her for a milkshake at our local cafe so that she could give me a proper debrief on her first day without interruptions from her little sister. It all seemed positive, with the highlights being a reading corner they are going to decorate themselves with covers of their favourite books, and the news that for the first time since Reception there is a class bear who will come home with different children over the course of the year. I’m hoping we’re fairly early on before the competition intensifies and we end up having to take Humphrey to Euro Disney or book a box in Covent Garden in order to show him a good time.

Anyway, tomorrow is another day. I have now at least made a list of all the jobs I need to do should I manage to get Sophia to have a nap in her cot. And we have crisp mornings, opaque tights, sausage and mash, cashmere cardies, and after-school hot chocolates and crumpets to look forward to over the coming months. Not to mention the fact that Anna just announced that now it is September she feels it is acceptable to start getting excited about Christmas…