A red balloon bearing a six-year-old’s handwritten note to Father Christmas has come down in a garden in Belgium.

Carson Harvey, from Canterbury, wrote to Santa inviting him to Christmas dinner and hoped it would reach the North Pole.

Instead, the balloon hit south-easterly winds and was carried across the English Channel.

It was found hours later by a nine-year-old boy as he fed his family’s hens on their smallholding near the coast of Flanders.

His parents got in touch with the Gazette to help trace Carson.

Carson, who lives in Pilgrim’s Way, said: “I’ve met Santa before, at a grotto at the market in Canterbury. I thought it would be nice to see him at home on Christmas Day.

“We let the balloons go at school and I wanted mine to go to the North Pole. It’s amazing it’s gone to Belgium. I know that’s a place over the sea.”

Year 2 pupils at Aylesham School released 30 balloons at around 10.30 GMT on Monday.

At approximately 3pm CET Merlijn Covemaecker spotted the balloon in his garden.

By a remarkable twist of fate, Merlijn had made headlines himself several years earlier after he floated a message in a bottle across the waves to England.

His father Jan said: “It’s an amazing coincidence. Merlijn was in the garden and was shouting ‘look Mama – there’s a balloon with some paper stuck to it’.

“We would love to hear from Carson.”

Mr Covemaecker, a boat captain who works on off-shore windfarms, calculated the balloon’s likely launch time using the day’s wind speeds and weather charts.

He said: “Merlijn found the balloon at around 3pm our time. It’s a distance of around 66 nautical miles and it will have travelled at around 14 or 15 miles per hour.

“Carson was very lucky with the weather, because his note was on simple paper. There was no plastic, no protection.”

In 2010 Merlijn had written a note in a bottle for his dad to put to sea. It was found two months later by a spaniel called Max on the Skegness shoreline.

Max’s owners Monica Brown and Andrew Dimbleby, then 52 and 47, got in touch with the Covemaecker family and had them over for a visit.