Jessica on her first day at school

• Greg and Poppy’s wedding in February with the girls as bridesmaids.
• My 30th birthday and combined birthday celebrations with my mum’s 60th in the Cotswolds at the end of April.
• Going to the London Men’s Convention with Des and some of the men from church.
• Starting to get into gardening and growing lots of tomatoes.
• Holiday to Malta with Des where the girls swimming really took off greatly.
• Our summer Hampshire pass, visiting some of the sites around - and especially our family trip to Basingstoke to visit Basing House and Milestones museum
• Our lovely anniversary weekend in Torquay thanks to Anne and Des.
• Abi starting school and her space party for her birthday
• Visiting the Royal Landscape and meeting up with Linda and Dave on their way back to Canada

So to celebrate my 30th, with thanks to my mum, here’s 30 photos of me, one for each year:

This afternoon we took the girls to the New Theatre Royal to watch Treasure Island, thanks to winning tickets in their twitter competition.

The set was really impressive with so many different things to spot with Abi before the show started, and had a fantastic ship’s bridge, which doubled as the tavern entrance.

The show started with the beating of a drum and a fiddle player on stage, then the musicians took over and it developed into a big opening number, a combination which returned several times throughout, making great use of rhythmic elements intertwining with music from the excellent musicians.

There was a great balance of comedic and serious moments. The cast were fantastic and interacted well with the audience creating a great atmosphere.

The New Theatre Royal is a beautiful setting and all the staff were friendly and helpful. We had a really fun time and the girls both had a great time and got really into the show. If you can get to a performance, I’d strongly recommend it!

We had a lovely holiday last week at Center Parcs - we’d booked it almost a year ago to make use of the discount they give if you rebook within 28 days of getting home so we were looking forward to it for a long time! It was so different to last time we went, as last time Abi was only tiny and not yet moving around, so we carried her around in the sling most of the time. This year she likes to walk around for herself and currently has a fascination with stairs - so every time she saw steps of any kind she would say ‘up stairs’ (even if she was at the top of them!) and head towards them. Also this year she was big enough to travel round in a bike trailer which after getting used to it she loved. Having bikes seemed to make everywhere seem so much closer and easier to get to.

It was a really nice relaxing week, and a few of the highlights for me were:

• Eating at the Pancake House on our first evening there, whilst watching the snow and the birds through the window.

• Taking Abi swimming and seeing how she grew in confidence with the pool and how much she enjoyed the slide in the toddler pool

• Cycling around, towing Abi behind in her trailer

• Being able to watch the wildlife from the villa window - Abi made friends with the ducks, but we also saw squirrels and coots.