Well, I survived the first week in my new job. It was really strange being back in uniform again but a good feeling.

Daughter had a good laugh at my navy trousers and tunic top, rather than my "office wear", while I had a reciprocal sneer at her school uniform, which I know she hates.

It is a shade of bottle green that is not the most flattering, I admit, but school uniforms have always been like that.

Since she entered her teenage years I have noticed how she makes little adjustments to try to make it look more trendy.

The current craze is to use as small, and fashionable, a schoolbag as possible, and carry all your books in a carrier bag. Not just any old carrier bag you understand, it has to be from the right shop.

Searching through the collection I use to put the recyclable stuff in, she announced that we didn't have anything even remotely appropriate and couldn't I go to some "cool" shops for a change.

As these appear to be mainly very expensive teenage clothes stores that is probably the reason why.

It is also de rigueur to wear one's school shirt outside one's skirt, which one has turned over three times at the waistband to make it as short as possible.

I remember doing this, although we used to hoist ours up with a snake belt. Why we thought a huge bunch of fabric lumped around our middles would go unnoticed, I don't know.

Anyway Sister Scholastica and her eagle eyes used to lurk by the school gates ready to pounce on any girl whose skirt was not regulation length.

That woman could spot a skirt that didn't "reach the floor when you knelt down" (school rules sub section 6a paragraph 19) from 300yds.

Daughter just had me saying: "That skirt's indecently short and why have you gone so fat all of a sudden?" before I realised what she'd done.

I adjusted her attempts so the skirt looked better but it was probably turned over again by the time she reached the bus stop.

She has also taken to wearing strangely coloured socks and her sweatshirt tied round her waist whatever the weather, refusing to wear her school jacket even when it's pouring.

As I watched her saunter down the road I reassured myself it was only a phase. I think her school needs someone of Sister Scholastica's calibre on duty at the gates.