It seems like only yesterday I was despairing over how to keep a five-year-old entertained during the summer.

The six weeks stretched ahead of us like a dry and dusty road, with just the occasional oasis in the form of a kids party or a weekend trip to grandma's to save us from blowing a gasket.

Now Eve has returned to school, togged out in a new grey pinafore dress and shiny new shoes, and I'm left wondering how the time went so quickly.

Apart from our week in Ibiza, I am struggling to remember what we did for the latter part of July and most of August. I may have to refer to previous columns to find out.

Even for Eve, who is usually as restless as a trapped wasp, it seems the summer has been and gone before she had much of a chance to get really, really bored.

Once or twice she complained that mummy and daddy weren't playing games according to her rules (which are as clear as cricket to me). And every now and then her baby brother's antics, largely involving bashing her with a broom, got on her nerves enough for her to walk away from him.

But I suspect that she still had a good two weeks of re-enacting her Barbie Rapunzel video and singing shrilly while getting dressed in the morning to satisfy her growing brain before the school gates reopened.

Now that we are into the whole school business with Eve, I am reminded about my own blissful years in primary education.

I used to love the start of the autumn term. When everything in the natural world was beginning to look a little tired and shabby around the edges, I'd be marching along in my new shoes, kicking the fallen leaves and splashing in the muddy puddles.

Each new year meant a new classroom, a new teacher and a whole new status. I remember being in the top year of the infants and thinking those in the reception classes were as cute as puppies, but not worth inviting to play with you.

Even those in the year just below were way too immature, so I thought, to appreciate the nuances and subtleties of sophisticated playground games such as "horses", in which we all pretended to be horses in a riding stables, or "The Osmonds", a role-playing game based on a very average Seventies pop group.

Sometimes a new year would mean unceremoniously ending one close friendship, and starting another.

I recall returning to school in the autumn of 1971 and deciding that Dawn Cousins was old toast and Jackie Banks was as exciting as chocolate Ready Brek.

I think the feelings must have been mutual, because Dawn was not in floods of tears when Jackie Banks and I made string patterns together on the first day of term.

Of course as I got older and the lessons became harder, the attraction of returning to school after the summer break became much less alluring.

Then began the decades of work, with weeks and months merging into each other without any structure, and I admit I rather missed the opportunity to start afresh at the beginning of each September.

So I am actually thrilled to be thinking about autumn terms again. To celebrate, I shall buy myself a new pair of shiny shoes and a matching pencil case.