Term begins

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that back-to-school feeling ever quite leaves you. September 1 will usually find me on a stationery spree, even if my urge to rush home and stick pictures of Duran Duran all over my new notebooks is not as strong as once it was. I may even be buying a pair of black patent leather shoes, though they are almost certainly going to be more exciting than my school shoes of yore. (Having size 8 feet in the 1980s meant lace-up Hush Puppies or slip-on Hush Puppies, in the days before Hush Puppies re-invented themselves as borderline cool.)

As term begins, watching children in stiff new blazers and shining white socks crowd nervously onto buses makes me a little wistful for the days when life was so full of clear beginnings and endings, and happiness could be defined by a day without PE or double German. (Of course, school could be uniquely horrible too. I’m thinking especially of cross-country running and social politics.)

This September, though, Alan and I are having a new start too. We are gently stepping into our new Northumbrian life.  Our house in London is packed up, our new one should be ours in a week or two. We’re staying with my parents, and going back and forth to London to work and see friends and tie up loose ends. 21 years after failing my driving test – 21 years after sitting behind the wheel of a car, come to that – I have passed my driving theory test and booked a driving lesson for this morning.

Today, Ned begins his A’Level studies at Kingston College. Joy will be starting at her new school too, here in Northumberland. And a new term is beginning for Alan and me too. I feel excited and a bit anxious and I really wish it was all underway already. I feel, probably, just like everyone you might see in a crisp uniform and nervous expression this morning.