Do you hear the pipes calling for Burns Night?

The commemoration of the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns has become a big date on the calendar of the pub and restaurant trade with numerous events proposed to be held locally in the Sleaford area.

Here are just a few to choose from but there are likely to be many more. Check with your local favourite eateries to find out details.

At Bar 51 in Southgate, Sleaford, from 8pm on Thursday, January 25, you can join the festivities to celebrate the poet’s life and works, with traditional bagpiper, ‘address tae the haggis’, an’ a nip o’ whisky. there will be Scottish Ale, gins and whiskys. Tartan dress code is encouraged.

At The Plough Inn at Horbling, there will be a Burns Night Supper on Tuesday January 30, complete with piper and three course meal including haggis in a whisky sauce, tatties and neeps.

Burns Night will be celebrated on Thursday January 25 at The Hare and Hounds pub in Fulbeck with traditional piper and addressing the haggis and plenty of Scottish fayre including cock-a-leekie soup, smoked salmon, haggis, neeps and champit tatties, roast rib of Highland beef and desserts such as Blairgowrie raspberry flummery or Drambuie brulee.

Contact the individual venues to book your place or for further details.

The night celebrates the life and work of one of Britain’s most famous poets Robert Burns.

The celebration started after the death of the Scottish poet in 1796, best known for the poem Auld Lang Syne, often sung on New Year’s Eve.

○ Burns Night is traditionally held on January 25, his birthday.

○ Haggis forms the centre of a Burns night supper and is usually the main dish.

○ Haggis is a type of sausage made from a sheep’s stomach stuffed with its own heart, liver and lungs.

○ When the haggis arrives at the table with great ceremony and pipes on a large plate, the host, or a guest, addresses the haggis by reciting either Robert Burns’ The Selkirk Grace (a thanksgiving said before meals in the Scots language) or Address to a Haggis.

○ It is cut open and generally served with neeps and tatties (turnips, swedes and potatoes).

○ At the end of the poem a toast is made - usually with Scotch whisky.

○ The supper may include Scottish soup and end with dessert such as cranachan (a mixture of whipped cream, whisky, honey and fresh raspberries, with toasted oatmeal) or tipsy laird (whisky trifle), followed by a cheeseboard with oatcakes.

○ The celebrations are often accompanied by bagpipes, plenty of toasts with Scotch whisky and singing Auld Lang Syne as well as other light-hearted recitals of Burns’ work.