The conundrum of the school coat

There are times when my life seems to be spiralling out of control. When the deadlines and washing bunch up in mountains of Alpine proportion, when the food for lunch boxes is still in the shop, when the tea is late and the boys appear to be brought up by Cartoon Network. And then there are the times when I can pat myself on the back for my enviable organisational skills.

This is one of those times. I am stickler for purchasing school uniform well in advance, for which read sometime in July before they even break up. Why is this? Because the first year my boy went to school I blithely assumed that I could rock up in late August and buy everything I needed in a single shopping trip. How naive was I?

Other super organised mums had scoured the shelves months before leaving them as bare as a wheat field after a plague of locusts has swooped through. As I disconsolately picked through the few shirts, vests and trousers that hung lank and unwanted on the racks, finding nothing in my boy's size, I vowed that I would never get caught out like this again.

From that term onwards I was on the web scooping up three-for-two deals as soon as they popped up, cackling at how much cash I had saved. I revelled in having my pick of vests, shirts, socks and shoes in my boys' sizes. Small things please nowadays.

This year I have been lucky enough to have been given a helping hand in my quest to win the most organised mum prize by the lovely people at Very.co.uk. You see while the basics of school uniform are easy enough to come by, assuming you adopt my early bird tactics, the school coat is another matter entirely.

It has to be light enough to cover the early autumn, but warm enough to keep my boy toasty when the cold winter weather hits, it also has to meet the exacting standards of my eldest who could give Gok Wan a run for his money when it comes to being fussy about his clothes. To this end Very has kindly sent me a black fleece lined Animal jacket and very handsome he looks in it.

But my mini fashionista is more than capable of looking a gift horse in the mouth and turning his nose up at it, to make a cocktail of my metaphors, so it was with nervous trepidation that I tried it on his majesty. However, he declared the lining soft (high praise indeed from Mr Fussy) and said that collar wasn't scratchy (a big problem with little boy's coats apparently). He then proceeded to tear off around the house in it, taunting his little brother over his lack of a new jacket. I guess that means it passed the test.

So a very big thank you to Very for solving this complex problem for me. Now I just need someone to step up and sort out his shoes and we are good to go back to school.