WELL that went by in the blink of an eye. The school holidays are over and normal service has resumed.

Back to swearing over packed lunches I have forgotten to do and repeating myself over and over again between the hours of 7am and 8.40am, Monday to Friday.

Time to get in the shower, go and do your teeth, do not leave your wet towel there, go and put your uniform on, do not forget to brush your hair…why are you still naked?

I must utter these sentences ten times each, every single weekday at varying decibel levels during term-time.

Depending on how many times I have been ignored, I can achieve the roar of a 747 taking off if necessary.

I really should have nailed it by now, but the mad panic to be ready and get our backsides to the school gates on time seems as frantic as it has always been.

But this is not a mum moan. I actually love it.

I thrive on routine and having to be up for a reason in the morning.

As tragic as it sounds, I am probably more excited at the start of a new term than my son is, particularly at the start of a new school year.

Taking him up to his new classroom yesterday, getting him settled in, finding his peg, where his drawer is and so on was just blooming lovely.

He is only six, by the way.

He is not a mortified 14-year-old cringing in the corner while I rub Weetabix off his chin with my own spit.

Granted, it will be a wrench.

But I hope I can be relaxed about him becoming a person in his own right as he gets older. If I really have to.

For now, though, I get to do full on mumming and I am well up for it.

The start of the new school year also signifies the end of the summer, of course.

A parent I saw on the school run this morning told me she had an autumn cold.

“Oh no,” I said. “What a shame.”

She replied: “I actually quite like it, it’s making me feel a bit festive.”

Despite being taken aback by the fact no one I know has ever admitted to feeling Christmassy thanks to a dose of the snots, I was mostly digesting the F word.

Festive. There it was.

I cannot deny it, I got a tingle, because I am one of those people.

The tingle first occurred for me a couple of weeks ago when I spied tubs of chocolates piled high at the entrance of my local supermarket.

Despite it still only being August at the time, and the fact I was wearing shorts and flip flops, I just could not help myself.

The tingle travelled up and down me in a flash and I felt a bit giddy.

I make no apologies for it.

I blinking love the build-up to Christmas and am happy to start getting excited as early as possible.

Even the arrival of X Factor and Strictly on my telly signals the start of the festive season as far as I am concerned.

From the moment they arrive, you know they are only going one way, straight towards Christmas in all their spangly glory.

I can actually feel your hearts going out to my husband as I type.

He has to deal with my deeply annoying Christmas excitement for a quarter of the year, every year.

It has got to the point where I have to keep a lid on it around him as much as possible.

Little does he know about the hours and hours I spend online in the evenings looking in wonderment at decorations, fairy lights and wrapping paper.

Nor does he know how much strength it takes to hold off listening to any Christmas songs in the house before December 1.

OK, so maybe I do that when he is not home.

Nothing like a quick blast of Wizzard to brighten up a dull day. Even if it is only September.

Don’t get me wrong, my husband is certainly not Ebenezer Scrooge himself.

He is just a normal guy, with a level head, who will happily have nothing to do with the festive season until it is a couple of weeks away.

Then he will cheerfully dig out his Christmas knit and get fully into the spirit as the big day approaches.

Of course, that is all perfectly reasonable.

It is not his fault he is married to a Christmas psycho, just like I cannot help the fact I was born with an extra helping of festive genes.

I swear I should have been born in Lapland.

I just have to serve it up to him in teeny, weeny, barely noticeable doses until he is well and truly ready for Christmas.