Things to do around Britain in March

As spring finally begins to arrive, trees but, lambs skip in the fields and this year an early Easter races towards us. It's time to get out and about and see what the season has to offer.

1.Attend the Yorkshire Brass Band Championships

Wakefield - 5th & 6th March 2016

Picture © Rich Tea

Once a year, more than sixty brass bands - including those of Black Dyke, Brighouse and Rastrick, Grimethorpe Colliery, Rothwell - gather together to compete for the the honour of representing Yorkshire in the hotly contested National Brass Band Championships of Great Britain.

This year's competition takes place over the weekend of the 5th & 6th March at St George's Hall in Bradford, a Grade II* listed Victorian concert hall which is set to close at the end of the month for a potential £3.2 million refurbishment project.

For more, see http://www.regional-contest.org.uk/yorkshire/

2. Celebrate St Piran's Day

Cornwall - 5 March

Celebrate the national day of Cornwall - and the patron saint of tinners - which regularly provokes special events in Bodmin, Bude, Callington, Camborne, Falmouth, Marazion, Newquay and Porthleven, where the Old Cornwall Society holds an annual Flag Raising.

For more, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Piran's_Day

3. Experience lambing at the Welsh Life Museum 

St Fagans, South Wales - 9th, 13th, 16th & 20th March

Picture © Alvesgaspar

In what sounds like a dream for some and a nightmare for others, St Fagans National History Museum offers the chance to spend a full day with a shepherd called Emma in a lambing shed at Llwyn-yr-eos Farm, learning how to care for pregnant sheep, with the possibility of getting hands on with delivery.

 For more, see http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/stfagans/whatson/8730/Lambing-Experience-Day/

4. Attend the Niel Gow Scottish fiddle festival

Dunkeld & Birnam, Perthshire, Scotland - 18th - 20th March

The 13th The Annual Niel Gow Festival takes place in the Perthshire town of Dunkeld & Birnam, and honours the famous 18th century Scottish fiddler and dancie Niel Gow, who was born in Inver on the south side of the Tay. The event aims to celebrate the life and music of the Perthshire's fiddle legend, as well as raise enough funds to erect a fitting memorial to the man himself.

For more, see http://www.niel-gow.co.uk/2016.htm

5. Gaze into space at the Observatory Science Centre

Herstmonceux, East Sussex - 20th March

Picture © Oast House Archive

The Observatory Science Centre at Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex was the home of the Royal Observatory from the 1950s until 1990, when the Observatory moved to Cambridge. Part of the site has now become  the Bader International Study Centre of Queen's University in Canada, and the other bit is now the Observatory Science Centre, an interactive hands-on science centre for families, which hosts regular stargazing evenings.

For more, see http://www.the-observatory.org/open-evenings