I've been watching with a certain amount of amusement all those back to school preparations which must have been going on in any household with a school age child this week.

All the frantic searching for blazers and school trousers. The last minute desperate dash to the shops to find the right school tie. The realisation that you really shouldn't have waited until Tuesday night to sew on 56 name tags and do you think anyone will notice if you use the office stapler to attach them? The cries of 'have you seen my school shoes I know I left them under the kitchen table in August?'

Been there. Done that.

There are good things about school uniform and there are bad things.

The good is that all the children have to dress the same, so there's no chance of any small person sneaking out in stretch lurex hot pants and crop tops. On the other hand it does mean you have to guard the uniform like a mother hen to make sure it is not worn after school for abseiling down Cornish hedges or mud wrestling.

It wasn't until I had children of my own that I came to appreciate my mother's absolute obsession with getting me out of one set of clothes and into another as soon as was decently possible after I got off the school bus. This was no doubt because in the days before washing machines or tumble driers a heavy serge gym slip could take up to two weeks to dry properly in winter so you made sure it wasn't subject to any more wear than necessary.

In those days, of course, schools had absolute authority when it came to uniform.

My mother once made me three school summer dresses in the regulation green and white gingham check. When I wore one for the first time the headmistress sent for me and asked me why I was wearing such a 'lurid' colour and said I was to tell my mother to produce the correct uniform post haste.

I didn't have the courage to ask what she meant, so I repeated the conversation to my mother, who came to the school the next day to find out what the problem was. The headmistress produced a small swatch of material from her desk, bottle green gingham check, and showed it to my mother. The lurid colour to which she had taken exception was just ever so slightly brighter than the regulation colour but totally unacceptable. Such was the power of head teachers that my mother didn't argue and the lurid dresses were replaced, except I had to wear them for out of school activities which didn't please me one bit.

I can imagine this headmistress would turn in her grave if she had to cope with today's school child who is likely to attempt turning up to school with green hair, a pierced navel and/or tattoos. I seem to remember she used to throw a major fit if she spotted some unfortunate girl wearing a headscarf.

I never gave my mother much grief about getting my ears pierced simply because she had a wonderful moral tale all ready and waiting and involving a girl called Fleur who lived just up the road. Fleur's mother was known to be a bit of a Bohemian, probably because she wore long floaty clothes, had her hair in a bun and painted.

She and Fleur went abroad for holidays, something practically unheard of in those days, and on one such occasion Fleur had her ears pierced in some exotic country or other and they went septic.

Now this was the sort of story mothers everywhere dreamed of to stop their offspring transgressing. Mothers always knew about little children who had lost a finger when playing with knives, or an eye when throwing stones, or some other part of their little anatomies when doing anything more dangerous than sitting in front of the fire reading. So here was a ready made warning in the shape of poor Fleur who, said my mother, had lost an ear lobe and suffered untold agonies; all because she had nagged her mother for pretty little gold studs. Such was the price of vanity. For a long time after I tried to get a glimpse of the lobeless Fleur, but she grew her hair long so I never did.

I didn't get my ears pierced until I was 30, and although they didn't turn septic they did bleed a lot and my mother still said 'I told you so'.

I'm sure if she'd been alive today she would have been horrified at the places people seem to feel the need to puncture, and would have issued stern warnings about the affected parts being likely to drop off if they weren't careful.

As well as back to school day Wednesday was re-cycling collection day when all the accumulated bags and bundles go out, so a bit traumatic to say the least.

In Callington we are part of a pilot scheme run by Caradon to collect waste twice a month. This is an excellent idea and I hope it is soon adopted all over the area.

It does, however, cause a certain amount of friction over what goes where, despite the list of instructions issued to each household.

I've been told off for not washing the Whiskas tins and accidentally putting plastic in the metal bag or was it the other way round.

Regular dustbin bags have been subject to fingertip searches and one person in our household (he knows who he is) is in dire trouble for helpfully popping a full bag of re-cycled bits and pieces into a black plastic bin liner and putting it out for the weekly collection.

I can hit back with accusations of certain people not making the daily trip out to my compost bin with veggie peelings on the grounds that it smells and has slugs and worms in it (yes, I have explained this is a good thing but to no avail).

The only mistake the council has made is to issue us with a 12 month supply of blue and clear plastic recycling bags.

I don't know what official thought this was a good idea, but he or she can't live in a household where any kind of empty plastic bag acts as a magnet (just as a new box of plasters does) and even if there isn't a good reason to use it one will soon be found.

I have already had to confiscate several from my son who had leapt upon the roll of bags with a cry of joy and began inventing reasons why his clean laundry needed to be individually wrapped to take home with him.

The likelihood of there being one bag left to pop the last of the waste in in 12 months time has about the same odds as winning the lottery.