Esther McCarthy: School's back — and there's no such thing as a free hot lunch

I have to admit, I can see the appeal. No more stopping with the coffee cup half to your lips in the middle of the day, breaking out in a sweat trying to remember if you put peanut butter on his crackers when there’s a severe allergy in the school.

Esther McCarthy. Picture: Emily Quinn

It's that time of year, gang. In a matter of days, the kids are trooping back to that building with the teachers, and the coat hooks and the weird smell and the white boards and the uber competent secretary who we all know is really in charge.

In one way, it feels like the summer has slipped through my fingers without me even realising it, but in another weird way, it feels like decades since I carefully folded the freshly laundered unifo... oh, I can’t lie to you.