Joseph Fry has a lot to answer for. In 1873, his company sold the first chocolate Easter egg in Britain — today, 80m are sold here every year. And that’s way too many mood swings for one weekend.

We say, move away from the egg. Put your hands up where we can see them. Throw down your wrapping. From concerts to coastal paths, fun runs to festivals, there are hundreds of great kids and adult days out this Easter.

For the children, castles and cuddly lambs, rollercoasters and rail escapes - there’s masses for you to get your teeth into. And we've lots of adult ideas to follow

GOOD FRIDAY

Lambs: everyone say “aaah” at Baylham House Rare Breeds Farm, near Ipswich, where children can feed ewes, hold lambs, even witness the cuddly creatures’ birth (01473 830264, www.baylham-house-farm.co.uk; open 11am-5pm; £4.50, children aged 4-16 £2, under4s free). More chick-and-lamb love-ins at Hall Hill Farm, near Lanchester, Co Durham (01388 731333, www.hallhillfarm.co.uk); Mead Open Farm in Billington, Bedfordshire (01525 852954, www.meadopenfarm.co.uk); and Henblas Park Farm in Bodorgan, Anglesey (01407 840440, www.parc-henblas-park.co.uk).

Medieval events: the world’s largest trebuchet — 22 tonnes, and 60ft high — is the star turn this Easter at Warwick Castle. It will be fired twice daily during a full-scale siege involving 200 soldiers (0870 442 2000, www.warwick-castle.co.uk; open 10am-6pm; £15.95, children aged 4-16 £9.95). For more olde-worlde funne, there’s a jousting tournament at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds (0113 220 1985, www.royalarmouries.org; 12.30pm and 2.30pm; £5, children aged 3-15 £3.50).

Marbles: the British and World Marbles Championships (01403 730602) take place at the Greyhound pub in Tinsley Green, West Sussex, with competitors waging war between 10.30am and 6pm. You can join in if you have a team of six (£24; ages 10+).

Science: Edinburgh’s Science Festival (0131 524 9830, www.sciencefestival.co.uk) turns the city into a boffin’s bonanza of robot workshops and dinosaur digs. Prices vary; day passes for the main venue, the Assembly Rooms (open 9.30am-4.30pm), cost £6 (£9 for children aged 7+, £5 for ages 3-6. In Belfast, W5 (028 9046 7700, www.w5online.co.uk) has egg-racing by remote-controlled cars (daily, 2-4pm) and demonstrations in slime-making and explosions.

SATURDAY

Steam trains: visit www.thomasandfriends.com for links to heritage railways visited by Thomas the Tank Engine over Easter, including the 10-mile Watercress Line, between Alresford and Alton, in Hampshire (01962 733810, www.watercressline.co.uk; £13, children aged 2-16 £8); and the Gwili Railway at Bronwydd Arms station in Dyfed, directed by the Fat Controller himself (01267 238213, www.gwili-railway.co.uk; £8, children aged 2-16 £6). Ivor the Engine, meanwhile, will be giving lifts on the Bunk Line in Oxfordshire (01491 835067, www.cholsey-wallingford-railway.com; £6, children aged 5-16 £3).

Forest fun: the Forestry Commission (www.forestry.gov.uk) has a beginners’ orienteering event at the Bennachie Centre in Aberdeenshire (01467 681470; 11am-1.30pm; free). Other events include a Nature Detectives morning at Cadman’s Pool, near Stoney Cross, Hampshire (023 8028 6840; (10am-12.30pm; £4, children aged 4+ £2); and a charity cycle in Kielder Castle Forest, Northumberland (01434 250232; £10).

Dinosaurs: only eight scelidosaurs (10ft, half-tonne dinos) have been found in the world — all of them within a mile of the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre in Dorset. The centre has two-hour fossil walks every day over Easter (01297 560772, www.charmouth.org; 10.30am-4.30pm; £7, children aged 5-16 £3).

Kids’ clubs: drop the hyperactive lovelies off at 9am, then pick ’em up at 5pm, worn-out putty in your hands after a day of quad-biking, abseiling, climbing and zip wiring with PGL Holidays (0870 050 7507, www.pgl.co.uk; £32, ages 8-16). PGL has centres in Shropshire, Surrey, Devon, Herefordshire, Dorset and Lincolnshire.

EASTER SUNDAY

Egg-hunts: the National Trust (0870 458 4000, www.nationaltrust.org.uk) keeps the child-obesity drive alive with 1.5m chocolate eggs hidden at 200 properties in England, Wales and Northern Ireland — visit its website for a choc-fest near you. North of the border, 12th-century Traquair House in Peeblesshire has 6,000 mini eggs hidden in its maze and 900 chocolate bunnies in its 100-acre grounds (01896 830323, www.traquair.co.uk; open noon-5pm; £3.50, children aged 5-14 £2.50).

Ducklings: new for Easter at the 100-acre Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Centre in Barnes, south London, are a “duckery” where children can watch ducklings hatch and a new adventure play area, with giant water-vole burrows and zip wires (020 8409 4400; open 9.30am-6pm; £8.75, children aged 4-16 £4.95). Visit www.wwt.org.uk for other events, including egg hunts at Welney, Cambridgeshire (01353 860711), and Castle Espie, Co Down (028 9187 4146).

Fairs: dust down your Cabbage Patch Kids, as Westpoint Arena in Exeter stages a Toy Collectors’ Fair on Sunday (01392 446000, www.westpoint-devonshow.co.uk; 10.30am-3.30pm; £3, children £1). There are Easter fairs of the face-paint and coconut-shy variety at Fyvie Castle in Turriff, Aberdeenshire (0844 493 2182; noon-4pm; £1, children £2.50), and on Southampton Common (07747 036067; 1pm-9.30pm). Zoos: opened two days ago, the walk-through lemur enclosure at Whipsnade in Bedfordshire lets you get up close and personal with the playful primates (01582 872171, www.zsl.org/ whipsnade; open 10am-6pm; £12, children aged 3-15 £9). Also just open is Gorilla Kingdom, the magnificent, £5.3m star turn at London Zoo (020 7722 3333, www.zsl.org; open 10am-5.30pm; £12.30, children aged 3-15 £10).

EASTER MONDAY

Thrill ride: last year, Thorpe Park in Surrey blazed a diced carrot-flecked trail with Stealth, the fastest rollercoaster in Europe. Tweaked with nitrogen booster systems, this year it’s even faster — and if you don’t know your nitrogen boosters from your Neutrogena body scrubs, let’s just say that they spell hideous Gs as you hurtle from 0-80mph in less than two seconds (0870 444 4466, www.thorpepark.com; open 9.30am-9pm; ages 12+ £24 online or £32 at the gate; under12s £16 online or £20 at the gate; minimum height for Stealth 4ft 7in).

Mad events: Easter Monday sees Britain at its egg-centric (sorry, it’s compulsory) best. First, in Yorkshire, starting at noon, Gawthorpe stages the world coal-carrying championships, with competitors lugging a hundredweight bag of coal 1,108yd from the Royal Oak pub. In Leicestershire, kicking off at the Fox pub at 2pm, Hallaton village stages the hare-pie scramble and bottle-kicking event, involving, yes, a hare pie, three bottles of ale and a ridiculous melee of macho yokels.

Imax: 65ft high and 85ft wide, the British Film Institute’s Imax cinema, near London Waterloo (0870 787 2525, www.bfi.org.uk), is the biggest wet-weather contingency plan in the country. Showing throughout the Easter weekend are Wild Safari 3D, Lions 3D and Deep Sea 3D (£8.50, children aged 4-14 £5). More big-screen Imax blasts in Bristol (0845 345 1235, www.at-bristol. org.uk/imax; £7, children aged 3-15 £5.50) and Belfast (028 9046 7000, www.belfastimax.com; £5, children £4).

Boogie-boarding: sea air, thrashing limbs — they’ll be begging to go to bed after a day’s boogie-boarding. Coast to Coast Surf School (07971 990361, www.c2cadventure.com) in Dunbar offers 2½ hours of instruction for £25, including boards and wetsuits, ages 7+). Whitesand Bay in Pembrokeshire is another top spot, with Ma Simes Surf Hut (01437 720433, www.masimes.co.uk) on the High Street, St David’s, hiring out boogie boards for £5 per day and wetsuits for £7 per day, with half-day surfing tuition for £25. On Watergate Bay in Cornwall, Extreme Academy (01637 860543, www.extremeacademy.co.uk) rents boogie boards for £6 per day and wetsuits for £10.

ADULT DAYS OUT

GOOD FRIDAY

Hill-walking: the Lake District National Park (015394 46601, www.lake-district.gov.uk) has 13 free guided walks over the Easter weekend, including a classic nine-mile hike along the Lowther Valley, starting in Pooley Bridge at 10.30am on Friday. Walkabout Scotland (0845 686 1344, www. walkaboutscotland.com) has a guided ascent of Ben Lomond, departing from Edinburgh at 8.30am, for £50, including lunch and equipment. In the West Country, WalkitCornwall (01209 860186, www.walkitcornwall.co.uk) has day walks round the Lizard and Land’s End from £25.

Beer: the Planet Thanet Easter Beer Festival (01843 591731, www.planetthanetalefest.org.uk) spills across the main hall of the Winter Gardens in Margate, Kent. There’ll be more than 200 real ales, ciders and perries to try, to a soundtrack from Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs. Open noon-10.30pm, Friday and Saturday; £3, children and Camra members free.

Skiing: once, indoor skiing meant bristle burns and elbow bruises, but now Britain has four indoor ski centres with proper snow, at Tamworth, Castleford, Milton Keynes and Glasgow. Xscape, in Milton Keynes (www.xscape.co.uk), has three pistes, the longest indoor slope in Britain (557ft), and an Airkix indoor skydiving facility (£39.99 for an hour’s session ). An hour’s skiing costs £21; open 9am-11pm. Visit www.snowlife.org.uk for links to indoor slopes in the UK.

Folk: the Gosport & Fareham Easter Festival (01329 231942, www.gosportfestival.co.uk) kicks off with three days of music workshops and dance displays in Fareham town centre, as well as a gathering of acts at Ferneham Hall that includes Seth Lakeman, winner of this year’s Radio 2 Folk Singer of the Year award.

Daily performances from 1pm to 5pm (£10) and 7.30pm (£20).

SATURDAY

Boat race: an estimated 100m people watched last year’s Boat Race on the box, with 250,000 packing the banks of the Thames, but if you wake up on Saturday to crisp, blue skies, there’s no better seat on the sport-watching planet than outside the Crabtree Tavern in Hammersmith (020 7385 3929), with sweeping views of the Surrey bend. Best rainy-day banker: the beautiful Duke’s Head in Putney (020 8788 2552), with bay-window views of the 4.30pm start.

Gardens: 10 years ago, you waited till May for the gardens of the National Trust (0870 458 4000, www.nationaltrust.org.uk) to bloom at their best, but global warming doesn’t half make for a colourful Easter. Vita Sackville-West’s Sissinghurst, in Kent (01580 710701; open 11am-5.30pm; £7.80, children aged 5-16 £3.60), puts on one of the best all-round shows, while bluebell-seekers should head to Speke Hall, Merseyside (0845 758 5702; 11am-5.30pm; £4/£1.90), or Dinefwr, Carmarthenshire (01558 824512; 11am-5pm; £6/£3). In Scotland (www.nts.org.uk), Inverewe Garden (0844 493 2225; 9.30am-9pm or sunset; £8/£5.25) has staggering rhododendrons.

Comedy: Galway’s clubs, pubs and theatres host the city’s second Comedy Festival (www.galwaycomedyfestival.com), with acts from Australia, Iran, Canada and the USA, as well as a posse of local talent. Saturday is the biggest day, with acts at the King’s Head (1pm and 3pm; £6.80), Roisin Dubh (5pm; £6.80) and three venues in the evening, including Tommy Tiernan’s Comedy Circus at the Radisson SAS (10.30pm; £17).

Boating: based in Hay-on-Wye, Herefordshire, Paddles and Pedals (01497 820604, www.paddlesandpedals.co.uk) has canoes for two for £35 per day, including transfers from journey’s end back to your car. In Cambridge, Scudamore’s (01223 359750, www.scudamores.co.uk) has punts for £18 an hour or £90 for a full day (9am-7.30pm).

EASTER SUNDAY

Running: you can hardly move on Sunday for jolly joggers, with the 10km North Tyneside road race (10am; 0191 200 8909, www.northtyneside.gov.uk; registration £14) just one of many fun runs grinning its way through a city street. Other runs on Sunday include Runcorn, Cheshire (5 miles, 9.30am; £9; 01928 516116, www.halton.gov.uk/runhalton), and Daviot Wood, Inverness-shire (5km, 2pm; free; 01463 791575).

Music: Sunday is the launch day for a new programme of brunch-time jazz and world music in the Albert Hall’s Café Consort (020 7589 8212, www.royalalberthall.com), kicking off with the Lonnigans Skiffle Quintet. Doors open at 11am, with music from noon; £25, including brunch and a buck’s fizz or bloody mary.

Skating: buoyed by a 120-decibel sound system, the Bunny Stroll (www.easterskate.co.uk) is a free, marshalled street skate that leaves Hyde Park at 2pm, setting off from the eastern end of the Serpentine road on a seven-mile-loop through the West End. Bunny costumes optional (£5, bunny ears £3; available through event organisers).

Horseracing: it’s day one of the Easter Festival at Fairyhouse in Ratoath, Co Meath (00 353 1 825 6167, www.fairyhouseracecourse.ie; £13.55, under14s free), with a bouncy castle and a supervised crãche, while Monday’s Irish Grand National (3.50pm) draws the see-and-be-seeners from Dublin, 15 miles up the road. Also on Sunday, Co Clare stages a rustic version of the above with the Dromoland point-to-point (2pm; £4.75: details from 00 353 45 445600, www.turfclub.ie).

EASTER MONDAY

Folk: with acts from as far afield as Colombia and Connemara, the Rootin Aboot festival kicks off at the Lemon Tree in Aberdeen (01224 642230, www.lemontree.org). Monday has workshops on the reels and slides of Sliabh Luachra (11am; £5) and the gypsy tunes of Eastern Europe (11am; £5). Hi-octane South Africans the Black Umfolosi Five perform free with the Irish-Hungarian trio Jani Lang Band at 1pm, then team up with Old Blind Dogs, 2004’s Best Folk Band at the Scots Trad Music Awards (8pm; £10).

Mountain-boarding: take one pimped-up skateboard and one grassy hill, stir in a giant dollop of derring-do — that’s mountain-boarding. Court Farm in Tillington, Herefordshire, has two 500yd downhill dirt pistes, a quarter-pipe, a stunt park and a beginners’ slope (01432 760271, www.courtfarmleisure.co.uk; open 11am-6pm; £6.50 per hour, £5.50 for children under 16, including kit). Visit www.mbseurope.com for details of centres near you.

City walks: explore Shakespeare’s London on foot, guided by boat to Bankside, then on foot around the Globe, Elizabethan bear-baiting dens and Southwark Cathedral, where Shakespeare buried his brother. London Walks (020 7624 3978, www.walks.com) has 2½hour tours for £8, departing from Westminster Tube station at 10am. In Edinburgh, Mercat Tours (0131 225 5445, www.mercattours.com) has walks along and under the Royal Mile from £7.50.

Bird-watching: blast away the chocolaty cobwebs on Skomer Island, 750 acres of twitcher heaven off the Pembrokeshire coast. More than 6,000 pairs of puffins breed here each year, as well as guillemots, razorbills and grey seals. Boats leave from Martin’s Haven daily over Easter, departing between 10am and noon, and returning between 3pm and 4pm (£14, under16s £6). Call Welsh Wildlife on 01239 621600 or visit www.welshwildlife.org.

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