I think it was September 1st when I stood outside in the early evening and felt that autumnal chill. “Hold on,” I thought, “I don’t remember there having been enough summer to justify it being over.”

I do remember that the kids had their holidays – one to pony camp and the other to an outdoor activities centre – and that I managed two nights at the Beautiful Days Festival (going down a helter skelter after a couple of pints of scrumpy was an interesting experience), but we’ve not had any of those lovely evenings sitting on the beach eating fish and chips, a perk of living reasonably near to the coast.

My summer seemed to consist of sitting in front of my laptop and running the kids around. I can’t complain, I suppose, because the workload was immense during August, not bad for a freelance writer in a double dip recession. Loads of press releases for busy clients, more feature articles about heating and plumbing than I care to remember and lots of entries for regional and national awards.

So the children are back at school, both at secondary now and the term-time juggle begins once more. What time is ballet, is there gym this week, where’s your homework, did you do your piano practice? The joy of freelancing is flexible working hours, the downside is needing to be able to jump when asked, which is frequently.

September, of course, began with some lovely sunshine, always depressing when you’ve spent the summer staring out at the rain. There is something nice about this season, however, and the lull before the Christmas madness begins. Work is levelling off and I might even manage to sneak out for a coffee with my much-neglected friends!