Well today was a blast from the past. My daughter Deirdre’s two children were going back to school. A most beautiful morning it was on Monday. Johnny Cooney used to say he’d be tempted to sow the grain late, so as to time the harvest for 1 September because the weather was guaranteed to be good when kids go back to school.

“What you’d lose in the yield, you’d make up for in the moisture,” he was only half joking.

Although he doesn’t care much about moisture now, sunning himself out in Florida for half the year after selling most of the farm for the Kilsudgeon Heights Town Square – a thing that was never built. The son bought the land back off of NAMA and as far as I can see he uses it as a hot-rod track.

Anyway, Adam and Ava were going back – Adam into third class and Ava into first class. Ava is proud of going into first class.

“I’m seven now Nana.” She says to me. “I’m wearing slacks this year because I’m not in infants. You only wear the tracksuit in infants. Mammy got the slacks in Dunne’s for me. They’re aged seven to eight, so Mammy says I’m going to get two years out of them.”

It looks like I reared my daughter well. Deirdre asked me if I’d like to go along to see them off. I thought I might as well. I’d be waiting for an invitation from Kevin-my-son’s wife, but that’s another story.

First day back has changed a lot from when I was dropping any of my four off. For a start, they got the bus, but there’s no bus anymore. People are too grand to get the bus now apparently.

The first thing that struck me was the style. Brand new outfits for half of them. And that was just the fathers. A load of fathers and they were taking photographs to beat the band. You couldn’t move for photographs being taken. And straight on to Facebook, and they spent the rest of the morning staring at their phones. Waiting for likes, Deirdre calls it.

The teachers were out to meet the children. All dressed up in Harry Potter gear or something from some other film. Teachers dressing up. They looked as flighty. We used to be scared stiff of our teachers and there was no dressing up I can tell you. We had Master Dougan for fifth and sixth class and he was stone mad.

“The last people who dressed up around here were the Black and Tans,” he’d say.

I spied a few other grannies over near the wall, away from the paparazzi. Sheila Hallissey, Catherine Phelan and a few others that I knew to see.

“You’re coming over to the Desperate Housewives are you Ann?” says Sheila.

“Desperate Altogether more like it,” says I. They got a good laugh out of that. I must remember to tell Himself that one. It’d be his kind of a line.

We were out of the schmozzle, but we could still hear Denise Hartigan in full flow. She’d be a good friend of Deirdre’s and she was always one to speak her mind. And she’d be a biggish woman too, so she’d have the projection, if you know what I mean. Denise was on one of her famous rants.

“Would you believe they had to get new history books this year? I spent €20 on a fecking history book for Kyle last year. What was it called again, What’s Past Is Past or something, and then I said: ‘That’ll do Siofra now next year’. I get the book list in the summer for her and what do I see, only a new shagging history book. Past Times it’s called. FOR FECK SAKE. What’s changed in history in a year? What happened? Did they find a Neanderthal with a bicycle or what like? The school books are a PURE RACKET.”

I can see one thing hasn’t changed anyway. CL