WOMAN: I spent my 30th birthday in Prague. It was a significant moment. To be somewhere interesting was like a statement of intent for the next decade. I hadn't come through in bad nick, either. No grey hair, thanks to good genes, and thinner and fitter than I was at twenty. But I can't deny I'd been anxious on the run-up to the big occasion. Goodbye to the decade of empty horizons, and hello to the decade of getting a move on. There's a lot to do. I've started a new career, and in the next ten years I must prove myself or face the scrap heap. I'll also have to decide if I want children and if so, get cracking. I have to grow up! These pressures could all seem overwhelming if I weren't able to look at fads and realise that, as well as being the busiest decade, your thirties is now also the best. For one thing, you calm down. You look at life's ups and downs from a position of experience. You learn that ambition has a price: chasing that huge salary means cutting back on the wilder side of your social lite. You figure out what your priorities are.