Last Minute Panic! ARGH!!

Why did I wait until the very last minute? I've known for the last few months that come Monday 1st October, the children have to be in Winter uniform. Megan's summer uniform is just a blue gingham dress, and she has plenty of black/grey skirts & trousers so no problem there, and Nathan has polo shirts for summer uniform and he got bought new trousers in September. I'd already dug out their ties and figured I was ready for it ... and yet it was only today ... Sunday 30th September that I could be bothered actually had the time to go get them the proper white school shirts.

So I thinks to myself I have to do a bit of shopping anyway, I'll take myself off to Tesco as they do the whole back to school range and I can do my food shopping at the same time. Genius! Unfortunately it seems everybody else had the same genius idea as well.

It was almost shocking watching the scramble to get the age/size that you wanted before anybody else could pick it up! Seemingly sane and normal people were glaring at perfect strangers for daring to reach out for the same pack of shirts as them! You were apparently okay if you had a child age 3 or 13/14 ... but anything in the middle? Forget it!! I left the crowd to battle over the couple of sets of age 8 shirts (that for a second I figured my kids aged 7 & 9 could share until I could find more!!) and went over to M&S!

It was still the same type of scramble in M&S, but definitely a more refined scramble!! I must have looked very harrassed as an assistant came over to me and asked if she could help. I just about managed to blurt out "boy age 6 and girl age 9. Need shirts. Last minute. Help." I think she took pity on me because she pointed out that there were actually a couple of areas where they had the school shirts hung up and took me over to the less crowded one!! I managed to come away with ONE pack of 3 shirts for both kids. Phew! (note - I need to buy smaller sizes for Nathan than his actual age as he's so small and skinny - it's not me getting his age wrong! haha!)

Note to self - next year buy their Winter school shirts right at the start of the summer holidays and then go to Tesco/M&S on the day before they have to be in Winter uniform and smile smugly to myself as I watch the foray from afar.