I just don't know what to do with myself...

I've got an empty house. Very empty.

I have just taken Rosie off to school for her first full day. She was as happy as a sunbeam, despite the freezing rain. I can't believe that my 'baby' is now four years old and a schoolgirl. When Hannah, who is nearly six, went full time, I had a two-year-old to come home to. Now I have come home to an empty house and a backlog of things to do that has been growing for the past six years.

I've been really looking forward to this time, but dreading it too. I have made all kinds of plans for this sudden flood of 'me time'. But I'm not used to it yet! What to do first? The ironing? Clean the black mould off the wall in the kitchen which always gets black mould on it? Clean out the fish tank? Watch daytime telly that isn't Cbeebies? Eat the things that Rosie hates like tofu and chili peppers?

What I'm really doing, of course, is wandering around a bit aimlessly. There's nobody to tell me what to do. Nobody to demand a drink or ask for a biscuit, another biscuit and another biscuit. Nobody to sit down, eat lunch, then five minutes later ask: "Have we had lunch yet?" Or kiss Daddy goodbye (absent mindedly) then ask, mid-morning: "Where's Daddy." Or, equally, "Where's Hannah?" Knowing full well that Hannah is at school and Daddy is at work. Or to watch a film, then, as the credits roll turn round and ask: "What was all that about then?"

Off she went in her little school uniform. Pint-sized and determined. She's really looking forward to her first school dinner. I think that's one of the main draws. That and her gang of little friends she's known since she was a week old.

When I went to school dinners were scoops of hairy mashed potato, lurid green peas and spam fritters swimming in oil followed by tapioca with a dollop of red jam. Hannah and Rosie's school dinners feature local produce freshly cooked that morning in the school kitchen by Hafwen. When we're dropping the children off at school, the vans are dropping off the food. Local vans, that is, dropping off locally produced bread, meat and vegetables. Hannah's best compliment to me after a meal is: "That was nearly as good as Hafwen's." Hannah loves school dinners. Rosie, diminutive little foodie that she is, has long been jealous of Hannah's lunches. She can't wait, and I only hope the meal lives up to her expectations. Today's menu is salmon grill with jacket potato wedges, peas and baked beans, followed by carrot cake and fruit juice. And this is without the influence of Jamie Oliver: the meals have always been that good.

So. I have made myself a coffee. Drunk it. Visited a few websites. Briefly. Wandered past the breakfast washing up. Ignored it. Now what. Write a blog? Tick. Hmmmm. It's nearly 10am. Only another five hours to go...