We know the road to romance is paved with pitfalls, but no one's had a worse journey than poor old Paddy Kirk.

He's spent months lusting after best pal Toni Daggert, but every time it looks like they're going to get it together, everything goes spectacularly wrong again!

Perhaps its relationship karma coming back to bite him after he betrayed wife Emily by bonking Viv!

Anyway, there's going to be some progress for the lovelorn vet in the run up to Christmas as he and Toni move closer together again – leading to a steamy night of passion!

It seems that playing the long game is going to work for Paddy as they finally get it on – but in the morning when he wakes up and Toni's gone, there could be more misery ahead.

Has Toni forsaken him after just one night or is Paddy being paranoid?

Let's hope David Metcalfe wasn't expecting an emotional reunion with his long last father.

Pollard's son is going to get a shock when he finally reveals his true reason for being in the village – and his desperate dad goes all out to dispel his claims!

And there's plenty of drama before the shock secret is revealed, courtesy of Del Dingle – who believes that David's dad is her uncle Zak Dingle! The ditzy dame will deduce that Zak's the daddy when her mysterious new pal drops some confusing hints.

So when a red-faced David is forced to publicly reveal that its Eric, not Zak, whom he's been searching for, all hell will break loose.

True to form, Eric is going to try to wriggle out of this one as quickly as possible.

And with David left so angry that he's forced to silence his rude relative with a punch, will Pollard ever accept his son into his life?

Finally, she's tried everything she could think of to split up Andy and Katie but Jo Stiles is getting nowhere.

The minxy mistress is having no luck luring her former flame Andy back into her bed, and every evil scheme she launches against Katy seems doomed to failure too.

But our Jo is nothing if not resourceful and she'll be stepping up her game as December approaches – and poor Katie is not going to know what hit her!

With everyone in the Sugden family being well aware of Andy's ill-advised fling, there'll be plenty of attempts to stop the brunette troublemaker spending time with him.

But Jo's going to orchestrate plenty of problems for the couple as they struggle to cope with funning Butler's Farm and looking after baby Sarah, that Andy will find himself looking favourably on her again.

And with Katie being the target for jealous Jo's venom, it's going to be tough to keep the scheming receptionist from getting her man again!