- Play Hard
- 27th Feb 2026
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Romanticising life in Newcastle: Mad as a March hare
After what has felt like 101 years of dodging puddles, March is back to flirt our Northern faces off once more.
Teasing earlier sunrises with a handful of delicious minutes more each morning, still dishing out goosebumps in the shade, slipping her shoulder from her floral dressing gown and whispering through the barely-warmer wind: “god, you must proper fancy me right now.”
Charles Dickens said March is the month “the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold” which couldn’t be more spot on for the NE postcode, and what are us Northerners full to the brim with if not Great Expectations? For the weather, for footy results, for the last bit of milk being just enough for a cuppa, and for knowing through the rain and restlessness of the North Sea, the daffodils would come home for tea eventually.
The North is defrosting…
I’ve always thought of March as a ‘commuter’ month, asking winter for a backer into spring and carrying the promise of summer in its trackie pocket. It’s the month of fresh starts and fresher trims, new beginnings and yet to be seen lushness as the North finally wakes from it’s sleet-y slumber. I guess woodland animals and Geordies have that in common in March, both doing their *biggggg* stretch to come out of hibernation: one for the need to replenish lost food reserves and reproduce, the other to neck pints on the closest half-collapsed beer garden bench the sun’s licking…and then probably reproduce.
If you listen really hard, you’ll hear the said beer gardens thawing out, cracking and creaking under the weight of an incoming Toon summer. Coastal seagulls kicking off earlier and earlier than the day before, and someone’s Dad with an NUFC calf tat howling “get that heating off will ya it’s 8 degrees man!”.
The luckiest to live up North
My American friend flew from New Jersey to Newcastle to visit me a few March’s ago, and as we walked down the half bright, half baltic Quayside, her sentiment on the weather up North will never leave me:
“You guys are so lucky, you literally get all four seasons in one day.”
I think about it often, her covered in sausage roll flakes for the first time and me proud to show her everywhere and everything until she ‘got it’ too, and she did, obviously.
Derby day debauchery
If the nights getting lighter wasn’t enough to get you out of your huff, March is about to boast many a Toonside celebration. The 22nd brings with it our favourite Sunday colour palette: black, white, and red all over. Derby day debauchery descends on the Geordie palace once more after a near 10 year hiatus, hopefully as a pint-sized easier pill to swallow than the last reunion.
We’re on hosting duties this time around, so prepare your lads, lasses and livers for the roar of a black and white ocean, with a few blue away kits and chant-purpled cheeks mixed in. One of my favourite stats to hear (other than 99% possession) is how many pints were drunk across the city on a single match day, and with the mackems at the other end of the bar looking smug, I’m gonna guess a Tyne’s full. Race you to the Gallowgate.
Irish charm all over the Toon
Another circle for your kitchen calendar is the 17th: the one where the Toon turns green. I’m yet to make the Guinness-fuelled trip to Ireland, but even when I do, St Paddy’ Day will still only ever remind me of one simple, annual phenomenon: students greenwashing Osborne Road. Clover deely boppers, emerald halterneck dresses and queues longer than a hangover Greggs order. I’m not sure there’s many other times or places where a part of the city changes colour entirely for the day. Maybe the perfect King Eddie’s sunrise makes Front Street orangey, or St James’s floodlights give a yellow glow to everything, but St Paddy’s in Jesmond is a full blown takeover, a green gush of ‘what time’s the taxi?’, ‘can I lend your gazelles?’ and ‘bet ya can’t split the G”s.
I once watched a group of ecstatic girls dispense a £32 bottle of prosecco into paper cups under the rain-battered umbrellas of Spy Bar, and remember how toasty they seemed beyond the downpour. The warmth of living together with the thinnest of walls between them, of lack of responsibility, of everything else mattering before the weather, of overdrafts, oversharing, and ‘big girl jobs’ feeling lightyears away. I hope they’re still in touch, and wearing just as much green, just as fearlessly.
Never bored up North
My epitaph will read ‘was never bored up North’, and March is no rival to that. Sample the pan-Asian sensations of the nation with 44 Events Kung Fu’d @ Wylam Brewery, belt “She’s So Lovely” (aka she’s proper lush) with Scouting for Girls at City Hall, and snog the Spring Equinox on the 20th as the days and nights finally find equilibrium, and we find more reasons to let the light in.
March also brings Mother’s Day, which I know is equally filled with love and loss and long-stemmed lilies. I just hope the sun rising earlier makes things a little brighter for you if the day does feel heavy, and that it’s filled with present moments or happy memories all the same. Love you, Mam.
Take the leap rather than keep the cushions nice
Even the Tyne Bridge has its new scaffolding jacket on, so don’t feel any less Northern if you’re still reaching for your big coat, but come April I want to see no more than an Adidas windbreaker or your lad’s hoodie, or you’ll get no ice cream after your tea. You heard.
When I was six or so, my Nanna would watch me frontflip off her perfectly plumped sofa into the cushion pile below and say: “eeeee you’re as mad as a bloody March hare you”, and not much has changed. I’d like to think we’d all be better off taking the leap rather than keeping the cushions nice.
So, whatever era Toon top you’re wearing, whoever you’re necking on with in Spy Bar smokers, what flowers are in the dining table vase, what’s in your cup at Wylam or written in the stars come Derby Day, I hope the third month is a glorious one.
Go on, big stretch. The puddles are almost all dried up.
Beth @nooksofnewcastle
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