The Birthday Post: Dirty Thirty

This is a post I’ve been dreading writing for….oooh…almost a year! 

I knew 30 was coming up in the rear view mirror but my goodness, where on earth has the last DECADE gone, down the back of the sofa!?

There is no way I relate to being as old as I am, especially as a blogger where most are in their teens or twenties, but here we are – there’s no denying the date on my passport!

I spent my twenties (shiver of pure fear at the past tense there!) partying hard and building my career in marketing and PR, so I don’t have many regrets – they’re just a waste of time, anyway. 

Now I find myself at 30 and although I know realistically that I probably won’t feel any different, I wasn’t looking forward to it!

However, I’ve been blessed with so much that I can’t feel too sad. 

A career I enjoy, a beautiful home, a wonderful husband and now of course, our little man on the way. 

There’s not much else I would have wanted by 30 (apart from writing that novel perhaps, but there’s
always retirement years for that!).

Birthdays aren’t the best for me, but I’ve had to learn to chill out about them and last year, I had a fabulous time turning 29 (read about that here if you fancy) so I thought I’d do another post for this
milestone.

My actual birthday fell on a Monday this year, which is the most rubbish of all days, so of course I celebrated the weekend before. 

I had originally wanted to go to Venice, but as I’d be over the fly limit at 28 weeks pregnant, we actually went last month (read my babymoon holiday post here). 

Not being able to drink does limit the options a bit as well, but I was determined to still have fun.

The fun started on Friday, when we had tickets to see Indiana in concert. She’s one of our favourite artists and gives a stunning live performance, so I was definitely excited to see her play again. It feels like she’s on the cusp of big things.

I met Seb in the city and we grabbed some quick food at Barburrito. It felt great to be doing ‘date night’ again, I love spending time one on one with him at the moment as I know that these occasions will be fewer when the baby comes.

After that, we made our way to Rock City for the gig. It was somewhere we misspent our youth, and a lot of big moments happened there. 

It was actually where I first spotted Seb (although not where I met him), as we both used to go with our friends pretty much every week and sometimes twice a week. 

It was where we spend many nights partying after we met, and where we had that first awkward conversation about our relationship status...

We’ve been back a few times since, but I got a little thrill about standing there now carrying our baby. Who would have thought it back then!

I can get pretty tired standing for long periods at the moment, so I made sure to sit down before Indiana came on and of course we had to keep to the back so as not to get jostled around. But we still had a brilliant view. 

Indiana bounded onto the stage – she’s definitely increased a lot in confidence since the first time I saw her, when she was visibly shaking and had to restart one of her tracks! 

Of course, she blew us away. Her voice is incredible, so soulful and pure. We really enjoyed the show.

The next day, Seb took me for a lovely afternoon tea at Colwick Hall.
 

I didn’t want to go out for a meal as staying up is a challenge at the moment and I can’t drink anyway, so tea was perfect. The hotel was absolutely beautiful.
 

 

We had the tea in their bistro, Byron’s, which was calm and welcoming. The tea itself was gorgeous and so tasty! 

We had mini quiches with salmon and spring vegetables, savory Ploughman’s scones, and mini salt beef bagels. 

Then the sandwiches - Cheese and spring onion, ham, prawn and rosemary salad, egg and watercress and tuna and cucumber. The sweets were served on a whole separate platter.

 

They were violet meringue with strawberries and cream, date & walnut cake, cherry and orange scones with clotted cream and jam, strawberry & blackberry tart and mini macaroons. 

All washed down with many a cup of Darjeeling.

 

  

It was absolutely delicious and wonderfully presented, I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for something special. We were so full afterwards we didn’t even eat dinner!

It was a bit funny because as we left, we could see the queues building for Detonate festival. I was there last year and I had to laugh because my situation this year couldn’t be more different.

My actual birthday fell on the rainy Monday, 1st June!

I tried to book the day of work, but there was supposed to be some big press announcement coming out, so I had to go into the office in the morning to deal with that and didn't get the lie-in I was hoping for. Boo.

And the worst part is, the announcement never happened in the end! Very annoying.

At 1 oclock I made the executive decision to have half a day off anyway, and at least be able to get home early. 

I quickly popped into a couple of shops on my way back – Mac to buy a couple of shades for my new palette, Boots to treat myself to the new No7 serum and H&M where there were some necklaces I had my eye on.

 

 

I spent the rest of the afternoon curled up with a magazine at home, watching the rain streak down the windows.
 

When Seb got home he cooked me a lovely dinner of steak and sweet potato spicy wedges, which I really enjoyed, and he’d also made me a delicious marbled white chocolate and vanilla cake, bless him. 

My dad also stopped by to wish me happy birthday and there were flowers waiting from my mum, which was lovely. It was about as good as a rainy Monday gets!

So quite a sedate one this year, despite the big number, I wasn’t up to doing much (growing a baby tends to cramp your style like that!), but I still had a good time and I think I’ve just about come to terms with 30. 

Hopefully the next decade will be even better than my twenties.

I was lucky enough to get some really lovely gifts as well, including perfume, Nars make-up, some Marc Jacobs sunglasses and the Rebecca Minkoff bag I’d been lusting over for quite a while, but I’m going to save those goodies for my next haul post.

Here's to being dirty 30!