Kate set to celebrate 34th birthday

The Duchess of Cambridge will celebrate her 34th birthday today.

The past year has been busy for Kate, who gave birth to her second child, Princess Charlotte, now aged eight months, last spring.

Prince George attended his first nursery class this week and was dropped off by his parents on Wednesday - with pictures released of the two-year-old to mark the occasion.

Highlights from Kate's 2015 public engagements include her inaugural Buckingham Palace state banquet - in honour of China's visiting President Xi Jinping - and her first visit to a prison, HMP Send near Guildford, Surrey.

Later this year the Duke and Duchess will tour India, their first visit to the Commonwealth country.

Kate and husband William are based at their Norfolk home Anmer Hall, near the Queen's private Sandringham estate.

But with two small children to look after, it is unlikely the duchess will be celebrating into the small hours.

So a quiet candle-lit dinner at their country home could be planned by the Duke to mark the birthday of his wife, who was born at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, on January 9 1982.

The couple were university sweethearts who met at St Andrews University in Scotland before marrying in April 2011.

William has been working as a helicopter pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance since the summer, based out of Cambridge airport.