IT feels like only yesterday since I was having a good moan about how dull the summer holidays are .... hang on it was only yesterday!

Well, yester-week anyway - what's happening to our summer holidays?

They keep shrinking but we don't notice until the last week because we've spent the rest of the time moaning about how boring they are.

How I regret going into great lengths at the beginning of the summer about how holidays were pointless and dull because now the holiday-god above is sending me back to school before I have chance to say "I didn't mean it!"

It's just not fair, even if you have had the time to make the most of your holiday rather than just complain, still there were constant back to school reminders in every shop in town, just to make sure that we could never forget that our little lives were for school, and school alone - holidays were just a bonus.

OK - we have had what, six-plus weeks, but look at it from this point of view. To start with as I've said you have to adjust to the holiday pattern.

It's hard, and takes a while, so that's two weeks down already. Then the next week or so is for socializing, for realizing that you can't hide away all holiday.

So this is the time filled with same-ish shopping trips but with a different friend each day, just to make sure they don't forget you.

And the final weeks are for panicking about reading long novels set for English homework, and trying to locate your mouthguard from beneath your bed.

So if you fill your holidays in this way, they really aren't all that long.

As if the fact that we have to trudge back to hell, (more commonly known as school) wasn't bad enough, we also have to endure the once a year shopping trip where mums force us to try on uniform that is half way down our calfs because "You'll grow into it dear".

Sadly, parents have wised up to the "Quiksilver shorts are a new edition to our uniform list, I swear" trick, so the future looks bleak any way you look at it.

So we'll just have to hold out 'til Christmas - and to set the record straight, I didn't mean to moan holiday-god, I'm sorry!

Updated: 10:56 Wednesday, September 04, 2002