Get the heating turned up for your Toga fancy dress party. It may be the end of March, but there is still a nip in the air!

Friday 25^th of March and it’s Independence Day in Greece, celebrating their break from the Ottoman Empire in 1821, so this is a good excuse for a Greek toga party and a celebration of Greek culture.

At Props n Frocks, we have a large selection of Roman costumes for all the family. Children study Roman history at school, and are quite often encouraged to dress up in a Roman costume. So if you do need a kids Roman costume, just ask Props n Frocks – THE fancy dress experts.

Alternatively in 421, at Noon, apparently Venice, the well-known water-logged city, was born, so a chance for a masked ball, perhaps.

Having said that, March 25^th is an interesting date for several other reasons; Firstly, in the days before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, this was the start of the new year, so that 1751 started on March 25^th and the following year 1752 started on January 1^st. Furthermore, this is the date of the Annunciation (also known as Lady Day) which is, of course, nine months from Christmas. An extra dimension to this fact is that in Swedish, Vårfrudagen (Our Lady’s Day) sounds very similar to Våffeldagen ‘Waffles Day’ and so today is actually Waffle Day in Sweden. Just a pity appropriate costumes are wafflley difficult to find!