On one hand, I applaud her industry, researching, downloading, filling in and applying. On the other hand – by far the biggest hand – I like the school she attends now. The teachers in the subjects she’s considering for A level are all great. What’s more, it’s an all-girls school, which I think is excellent, aiding maximum concentration at an age when those ridiculous wastes of time, boys, start rearing their ugly heads.

There’s also, of course, the risk that not all applications succeed, though obviously I think she’s more than capable of getting in to every school she’s set her heart on. But it’s all a big hassle and I do so love a quiet life. Ho hum.

There are quite a few major areas of terrorist activity. 1. Going Out, 2. Homework and 3. Clothes. To sum up briefly, there is not enough of 1, there is way too much of 2, and there are absolutely none at all of 3, or none that suit any possible given occasion or mood.

Only yesterday I was greeted with simultaneous demands to go out with friends, to forget about homework as it was ‘optional’  and for list of clothes including a green V neck jumper, boyfriend jeans, two skirts and a coat. That was within five minutes of picking up one of the teenagers. We were half an hour from home and I spent the rest of the journey trying to avoid thinking about the glaring crevasses in the teenager’s wardrobe and concentrated, instead, on visualising myself lying on a sun-drenched beach reading a thriller and sipping a pina colada. Alone.

At times like this I need all the help I can get. Yes, I do occasionally shop in Primark. I know that the amazingly cheap and occasionally chic bits and bobs are probably stitched by children younger than mine, and I do feel awful about it, but sometimes needs must when the devil doo-dahs. And, if I’m shopping online, I always check for shopping vouchers first. There are currently some New Look vouchers from ShoppingVouchers.co.uk which are definitely worth a go.

Phew. The girls’ wardrobes can now be safely restocked and the standoff is over. For now, anyway.

Not for myself, you understand – though I did get a dirty tweet today on Twitter, yikes – but for Child One. Since arriving in the UK three years ago, she has ‘done’ sex as part of the national curriculum every year. Presumably every time, this is er, gone into in, ahem, greater depth.

There was the famous time that she had to colour in male genitalia, asked me what certain dangly parts were and was most disapproving when I could supply the correct answer. ‘You seem to know an awful lot about all this, Mummy,’ she said in crushing Lady Bracknell tones. Then, of course, she was shown the childbirth DVD. The obligatory child in her class crashed to the ground in a dead faint – but, to add a note of novelty, this time it was during the opening credits. Nobody had even mentioned stirrups. Wimps! 

Now she is in Year Nine, and the spectre of actual sex is looming ever larger (a girl of the same age in another school apparently emailed a picture of her breasts to her boyfriend, who promptly posted them on Facebook. The age of chivalry is not only dead, but doesn’t even have its own social networking memorial site).

So far this year, she has had two full days of talks about sex. One day involved an extremely Christian couple who talked about the sanctity of marriage. Unfortunately, the girls may only be 13, but they all KNOW it is possible to have sex outside marriage. And they know that people get divorced. So it is pretty stupid, I think, for anyone to try and tell them differently, however well meaning. Child One was not impressed. Worse still, the couple was OLD and the Child and all her friends were utterly grossed out  by the idea that these wrinklies were still Doing It. I didn’t dare ask how old they were as, obviously, they were bound to be much younger than me.

Now yet another talk is looming, as soon as the half term break is over. All right, the school is in the borough with the highest teen pregnancy rate in the UK. And maybe the constant repetition of the cold facts will make the whole subject as enticing as double maths. But still ….Is there anything else the school can tell them? I absolutely dread to think. ‘You’re going to know a lot more about this than me, soon,’ I joshed to Child One. She gave me a Mona Lisa style half smile. Now that really was a yikes moment.