It delights me to share this picture that I took with you here. When I first posted it on Facebook, it got an overwhelming response from people who know Katie and I.

Today, I am back and in the office after having been away for the best part of a fortnight. It is great to be back at it and catching up and getting things done… But I would rather be at home.

Since I first set up my business, I have never, ever truly felt that way. Not even when I have been mega ill. I love my work, it has been central to my life, it is a massively important part of my life.

Yet this morning, I wanted to stay home.

This morning I got up early, and excitedly, I made my breakfast, got my lunch packed and ready while Katie headed out to bootcamp at 6am. I had everything ready, katie had got in and was showering, and you want to know where I was when she got home?

I was stood outside my son’s bedroom hoping that he would wake up so I could go in and grab some time with him before I left for work.

Eventually I went in, opened his curtains slowly as he slowly opened his eyes and smiled and made an excited noise. He unwrapped his blanket from around his head – he has a favourite blanket that he loves and is as attached to it as Linus was to his – and having slept solidly for 13 hours, he stood up in his cot and stretched out his arms to me. My heart melted.

So I swept him up, gave him a big kiss and lay him down to change his nappy. Something I actually have no issue doing despite fearing this for most of my adult life. I actually quite like it. I have made fun games with him by singing the Wipeout tune every time there is a Huggies wipe in my hand and he finds it hilarious. I then put him in his little dressing gown (it matches his Daddy’s) and slippers, I took him downstairs and put him in his high chair for breakfast before I had to head off. It was snowing and it was freezing and I knew how much I had to catch up on at the office, but I just plain and simply wanted to spend the whole, entire day with him and Katie.

For people who know me and know the journey that Katie and I went on to have a family of our own, you may appreciate my sentiments even more, but I am absolutely aware that most parents feel this way. It is new to me and I love it.

My favourite sound is the noise he makes when he is playing and absorbed in his games, that sort of rolling R noise that you make by blowing your lips out to make the sound of a car driving. My internal dialogue has turned into noises and verbal expressions I use with him that he is learning to understand. The things I think about are ways in which I think I can help him be happy, what I think he’d like to wear, what he’d like to eat, and yes, all in all, things are changing…

He is the sweetest, loveliest, happiest, most beautiful craziest person I have ever met. I am warm inside. But I don’t want this to be some gushing, overly biased account of what I think about my son… Most parents feel that way about their own children. I am no different.

While I was away, my hypnosis for running book got a five star rating in Running Fitness magazine and it is beginning to gather momentum wonderfully… It made me realise how far I had come with that project that we began just over a year ago and it got me thinking that I now want to do the same with my other, new love and passion…

My research is now underway, journals are flying around my office, text books are piling high and I am reading flat out. Hypnosis for children is going to be my next major project. It is something I have an avid interest in, something I want to know a lot more about and having already begun my literature review, something I think I can really bring in from the fields of academia, into the lives of parents and children alike.

Within my professional work, I have worked a great deal with helping teenagers develop self-esteem, but I want to look further into the way in which hypnosis can be used with valuable and beneficial effect. So expect to see me writing about this subject on the blog a fair bit in coming weeks and months.

For now though, my gushing, swooning will be reserved for home and won’t creep in (too much) to my blog, but I want to offer my sincere thanks to all the people who sent us love, congratulations and support – not just in recent weeks, but in the past couple of years. I appreciate you all and feel absolutely privileged to have so many wonderful people in my life.

This blog will be up and running and firing on all cylinders again now… And with this year’s intensive diploma course about to be run in Bournemouth next week, there’ll be plenty of classroom anecdotes to share soon too!

Stay tuned.