How many days until Easter?

Easter Sunday moves every year. The date is worked out from the lunar calendar — the first Sunday after the first full moon following the March equinox — which places it anywhere between 22 March and 25 April. That drifting date drags a lot of the British spring calendar with it, including Mothering Sunday, Pancake Day and the school Easter holidays.

Good Friday and Easter Monday are bank holidays in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, giving most people a four-day weekend; in Scotland the Monday is not a statutory holiday, though many employers grant it anyway. The break usually lands close to when the clocks go forward, so it often feels like the first proper stretch of long evenings of the year.

The traditions are a mix of the religious and the entirely commercial. Church services on Sunday morning, hot cross buns from Good Friday onwards, roast lamb at lunch, egg hunts in gardens and National Trust grounds, and chocolate eggs that have been on shelves since the first week of January. Egg rolling down a hill is still a genuine local custom in parts of Lancashire and County Durham.

Because the date shifts so much, working out the wait mentally is harder than for a fixed holiday. The countdown handles the calculation for whichever year it is currently pointing at, and it runs to the midnight that opens Easter Sunday itself.