Santa has just left the house. Or so it would seem. On a plate on the floor under the tree there are a few crumbs from a mince pie, the stump of a carrot and an empty glass. Evelyn's presents lie under the bejewelled plastic fern that holds so much magic, hope and promise to children and children at heart. Evelyn and I went carol singing tonight, I sang, she danced

I received a series of cryptic text messages from my estranged wife Laura on Wednesday, so I called and she told me that she had given up the legal battle to leave the UK with our daughter. A fax arrived at my solicitor's office as it was closing for the night. My solicitors, solicitor's clerks, barristers, attorneys at law and Queen's Counsel, for there are many and on both sides of the Atlantic, were all left dumbfounded, as was I. At Laura's request, I went over and we had a chat with Evelyn and tried to explain what was going to happen, I'm not sure what she understood. Laura had told her what was occurring previously, but when I was there, she was capering about the apartment on all fours, yelping and pretending to be a puppy. Laura was tearful and without the malice and bile I have become used to over the last eighteen months. Laura had already left for the airport when I picked up Evelyn the following morning from Laura's mother, who has been here since August and I became a single parent.

Evelyn was ordered to be returned to the UK in July at the orders of the Canadian courts and Laura came with her, the final hearing for leave to remove was to be in January. My legal counsel were passionate about our case for refusal and felt that we were in with a fighting chance of success despite the UK's traditionally outrageous bias towards maternal preferences over domicile.

There are a few legal loose ends to be tied up over agreed contact and holidays, but these are just routine. We will all then have to settle in to the new phases in our lives.

When I was in Canada in May 2009 on vacation with my wife and daughter and staying at the in-laws, plans were already underway to present me with the surprise divorce petition which has now been struck out. A few weeks later I discovered by e-mail that I was separated and five days later, discovered that the woman I loved had asked through the courts for a divorce, full custody of our daughter, approximately two thirds of my net income and a freeze on the bank account which had my the final deposit for an apartment I had bought off plan, effectively meaning that I would lose it. As if that wasn't enough I was told that Laura would rather see me in court than allow me the unaccompanied access to my child that I had had since her birth. I tried at the time to get them to see what they were doing, to try to do this the decent way, to allow some dignity and respect. They wanted my daughter, my money and my assets. I say they, as I don't believe that Laura was the sole architect of this, responsibility must also be borne by her mother, who seeks and sought to control everything, and her lawyer who seemed to have obtained her qualifications from watching daytime TV. It was the wrong thing to do, it would have been a wrong thing to do if I had not prevailed in the courts. Somehow they don't seem to understand that the responsibility for what has passed is their own. Laura could have done this so differently, I did the only thing I could.

I often wondered how Laura thought she was going to explain what she had done to Evelyn when she is old enough to ask questions.

And now we are here and my daughter is living with me permanently. I have missed out on a year of watching her grow up, with what contact I had spoilt by my estranged wife's mother, lost perhaps £150,000 in cash and assets and who knows how many years of my life. Laura has no doubt suffered too. My daughter has been denied the loving home with a mummy and daddy that she deserved and lost a year's worth of real contact with her father. I must do my best to be the best father I can be and make up for the distance of my daughter's mother. I must ensure that the contact she has with her mother and her mother's family is better than I was given and see what I can do to heal the wounds that have lain open too long. I want Evelyn to grow up happy and I'll do whatever it takes.

Thus ends one chapter in all of our lives and hopefully the next will bring peace, civility and respect to everyone. I hope Laura and her family find serenity and I'll do what I can to help them share in the joy of Evelyn's life.

Merry Christmas one and all!

Around the corner I have a friend,

In this great city that has no end,

Yet the days go by and weeks rush on,

And before I know it, a year is gone.

And I never see my old friends face,

For life is a swift and terrible race,

He knows I like him just as well,

As in the days when I rang his bell.

And he rang mine but we were younger then,

And now we are busy, tired men.

Tired of playing a foolish game,

Tired of trying to make a name.

"Tomorrow" I say! "I will call on Jim

Just to show that I'm thinking of him",

But tomorrow comes and tomorrow goes,

And distance between us grows and grows.

Around the corner, yet miles away,

"Here's a telegram sir," "Jim died today."

And that's what we get and deserve in the end.

Around the corner, a vanished friend.

- Around the Corner by Charles Hanson Towne.

......................What are you feeling right now?

How is it that for Subway to make a roll taste OK they have to put 5000 ingedients and 300 sauces into them whereas patisserie Paul will make something spectacular by opening a demibaguette buttering it and inserting a single thin slice of ham paired with a single thin slice of cheese?



The French just know bread and no other nation has ever really come close in this regard. Had Napoleon opened a chain of brasseries he would have had no need of military campaigns, world domination would have been a surety, we would all have been spared the high street blight which is Greggs and Emma Hamilton would have lived happily ever after. And how is it that the French have patisserie Paul and the British have Greggs? I ask you, we won the War of the Third Coalition! After Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo all of the patisserie Pauls in Paris should have been moved to London and all of the Greggs should have been moved to Paris, that would have taught them a lesson!



I love patisserie Paul, I love the understated shop frontages which would not be offensive anywhere, the wonderful cakes and tarts, the quiche, the baguettes, the staff, it is one of the few chains that there are just not enough of. Why isn't there one on Bishopsgate?