Flying home for Christmas....

Darling Baby Kay, you are upstairs asleep on a wet and grey night, and I am downstairs typing away for a little while before I come up to join you. I have been wrapping Christmas presents - one of my favourite jobs of the year - and watching Nigella Lawson on the TV doing her Christmas cooking special.

I have a little tradition every year - it goes back to the days when I lived and worked in London and used to come back to Carrickfergus for Christmas. I love mince pies, but have no self-discipline and would eat them from 1st November to 31st January if I didn't control myself. My tradition is that I am not allowed to have my 1st mince pie of the year before I hear the Chris Rea song 'Driving Home for Christmas' on the radio - because it always reminds me of coming home for Christmas and knowing that Christmas is here at last.

Your Daddy will be 'Flying home for Christmas' tomorrow afternoon - he has been away in Barcelona with work. When you are bigger we will take you there - it is the city of dreams and I hope you grow to love it as much as we do. It is the place your Daddy first took me away for the weekend to. He held my hand in the park in the shade of La Sagrada Familia and told me he loved me for the first time. There is a little play area there with swings and a slide, and we will take you there for sure when we go.

Before he went away I was in the kitchen washing up after dinner, and I heard Daddy playing 'Driving Home for Christmas' on his laptop - and he had even bought me some mince pies so I could listen to the song and start my Christmas celebrations. That is the kind of amazing, thoughtful man your Daddy is. And tomorrow we will begin the run up to your first Christmas together as a wee family - and I can't wait my love.

Sweet dreams my darling Baby Kay x x x