How LONG have I been looking for the TV remote?

Ring the bells, call the bands of rosy-cheeked children, bring out the combine harvesters, autumn is upon us.

I'm actually writing this on the fresh, dewy morn of September 1, but of course by the time you read this on Thursday you'll have had to buy both a winter coat and a kaftan, reattached and subsequently sweated under the bigger bit of your seasonal duvet, bought up the whole range of Baxters tinned soup and the novelty will have completely worn off (which is why the medium of the printed press is clearly inadequate and I should be on live telly).

And as the first day of autumn is dawning, so is the realisation that this is my LAST EVER proper September.

This is it.

From here on in I will never have a special September again.

Hopefully, I'll have a degree, but that hardly compensates.

Yes, with the end of education comes the end of each beautiful September ritual and the end of all that back-to-school hope released with the purchase of each new packet of BHS cotton-rich ankle socks.

It was the heady mix of excitement, dread and exposure to copious Babybell additives which made September so magical.

Maybe this year I'll meet the teacher who inspires me to meet my true potential as a rocket engineer or professional stoolball player.

Maybe I'll do a dance in assembly so wonderful I'll be invited on a tour of school assemblies and become a minor star.

Maybe Derek Biggleton will lend me his Nintendo DS* for a playtime, or even better, cut off my pigtails because he secretly likes me.

I might stub a toe and get to lie on the novelty bed in the sick room!

SO MANY THINGS MIGHT HAPPEN.

Now all I have is the vague ambition that someday, perhaps, I might make it through a lecture in a fully-conscious state and leave feeling reassured that £3,000 a year is a bargainous price for the life-enriching brand of wisdom I'm receiving.

Not even a new pencil case can pep up that dismal dream.

Ah, the new pencil case.

Never again shall I live through the emotional rollercoaster of the case-choosing process.

Except perhaps if I produce my own children and live it vicariously through them (an idea which, now I've typed it, seems as good a reason as any to reproduce).

In a world where everybody was outfitted in McGregor's finest knitted acrylic, the pencil case clash took on the same horror as two women turning up at a party in the same frock.

She has the same Disco Diva tin.

Never again may she borrow my scented rubber.

The real winners were the ones who had reached beyond Montague Street, the traditional triplet of Smiths, Woolies and Stationery Box, and bought their pencil case elsewhere.

Somewhere exotic, like Chichester.

But the one I really miss, the Septemberest of all September activities, is shoe shopping.

I sometimes feel the energy I used to expend battling over appropriate heel heights in Dolcis must still be stored within me somewhere and should probably be put to good use fighting for world peace or the environment or something, now that there's no danger of my mother popping up to say "Stilettos?

"You're going to a Wordsworth seminar, don't be ridiculous!

"Take them off and we'll get you some nice Hush Puppies."

My most memorable footwear victory were the three-inch Topshop wedges I had for year nine – in the end I was punished for their flagrant impracticality when one of them ended up underneath the 08.20 train at West Worthing station, leaving me stranded, shoeless, in a carriage full of merciless St Andrew's boys.

Back then, wonky by three inches and anticipating a pencil case clash, I didn't appreciate the glory of September as I do now.

So my plan for this, the last ever special September, is to blooming well do September to the max.

Last term, I had one leaking Biro hidden in my handbag lining, this term I will have no fewer than three pencil cases, each abundant with every Crayola shade on the market and several bottles of Tipp-Ex (I'm a grown-up now! It's allowed!).

I will have notebooks for every day of the week and ringbinders and dividers, and more cotton-rich ankle socks than a girl can dream of.

And I will go to Clarks and buy up everything sensible they have in a size 7, perhaps engaging in an argument with whichever nearby woman looks most like my mother.

*Please replace with your own decade-appropriate piece of coveted classroom bounty – for me it was Pokemon cards, cyber-pets, yo-yos and the occasional flicknife.

Perhaps for you it was the Rubik's Cube, or a slingshot made from sticks.

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