Little things that brought you absolute joy as a child

[DevilledEgg]

For me it was silver balls on cupcakes. Such a simple thing but we didn't have them very often, so whenever I saw some on a cake I'd bubble with excitement. I bought a cake today with some on and I swear, I was five years old again!

Playing with the papery discs of the Honesty plant in my grandmother's garden.

Butterscotch wrapped in gold paper and barley sugar twists from a tin on her mahogany sideboard (and if I ate enough of it, a bonus trip to Woolwiths Pick and Mix counter to restock).

Jumping through the lawn sprinkler on hot days - hours of fun!

The distant sound of an unexpected parade approaching. So exciting. Usually a marching band, but one wonderful day the circus came down the road and past my bedroom window!

Being off school ill and watching 'The Love Boat'!

Cornish ice creams on the beach. Queuing up then the peril of carrying them back to the family without melting or dropping them. Oh the achievement!

What a lovely thread. Brings back many happy memories.

New stationary, especially if it was novelty stuff like rubbers in the shape of a rabbit or a pencil case that looked like a crisp packet.

When it was my turn to choose a video from the library.

Being allowed to choose a cake at the bakery if I'd been good at the supermarket.

When they wheeled the TV into the hall for a lesson in primary school.

Peeling tar off the telegraph poles when it was really hot and it melted.

Dad ringing from work asking if we should go to a nearby outdoor attraction for a picnic tea. The excitement!!!

My pets, I had a guinea pig, a budgie and a tortoise that lived in the garden and hibernated in the garage in the winter.

I still keep guinea pigs!

A Chalet School book , the sofa and unrestricted access to the biscuit tin

I just had a flash back to those bike spoke reflectors that you could get out of Kelloggs cereal! And those plastic things to thread onto shoe laces around the same time.

Anyone else being transported back to times when they didn't have a care in the world? Being reminded of things that I had totally forgotten about ❤

Lucky bags
Sugar cubes
Raw cubes of jelly
Melted tar on the road

A new Comic, Enid Blyton or Chalet School book

Seeing "sparkles" on the sea. Apparently I came up with the concept when I was about 3 and 40 years on my mum still mentions it. I always fill with joy at a sparkly distant sea view.

Me too! My favourite records were Camptown Races and Edelweiss.

@IBlameTheDog I too loved it when the TV and video was wheeled into the classroom.

In warm weather, I liked to wear my velcro shoes without socks because I loved the feel, even though the adults disapproved of this.

I loved it when somebody blindfolded me for a game. I used to keep my eyes open and watch everything go black, say to myself "this is what being blind is really like"; and I liked the disorientation of being spun round. (I liked getting lost in mazes too.) There was a lovely game my family played sometimes in the garden: I'd sit in a chair, feel it being lifted up, and be told I was flying, and the houses and fields were all tiny beneath me. I couldn't see a thing, so I didn't know that I was only a few inches off the ground, but it always felt like flying high. My parents once did a really clever thing, in which they convinced me that I "took off" from near the house, and when my eyes were uncovered a few minutes later, I found I was right at the other end of the garden. 😮I didn't learn until years later how they did that bit of magic; and no, they didn't carry me all the way from one end of the garden to the other.

We had one of these at playgroup and the leaders got it out whenever it was someone’s birthday. My parents also had one.

Oh yes, the t.v being wheeled into class and watching How We Used to Live 😃

70s sex education TV living and growing.
Early 80s teenage situations programme Starting out.
Loved a bit of TV at school.

Polly Pocket. I loved those. Really hope DC will be into them or something similar so we can play together (is there a dinosaur-themed version? DC loves dinosaurs...).

Licking the wooden spoon (and eating whatever was left in the mixing bowl) after baking. I recently introduced DC to this and saw the same joy on their face as we did it together.

The post arriving with a letter from a pen pal.

My teddy collection - it was displayed in the local library!

Getting home from school to find my new comic waiting for me or going to the cornershop where it had been reserved.

Going home from school for dinner.

Going to one of the many newsagents that existed back then with my pocket money and choosing 2oz or a quarter of sweets. I also loved getting a 10p/20p bag of penny things and making my selection, "I'll have one of those please, two of those..."

Mum buying me a Lucky Bag.

Those were the days. Kids were kids and we enjoyed simpler pleasures.

Ah lucky bags they promised so much 2p,5p,10p...the ultimate swizz bugger all in them.
Then you wished you'd stuck with the penny sweets 😁

The TV at school. And the feeling of a full stocking on the end of my bed knowing that " He's been!! "

Hologram pictures that looked 3D from a certain angles.

My large clear iridescent marble - it looked like a bubble and I treasured it.

Seeing hot air balloons in the sky.

Watching the tadpoles in our shallow pond turn into frogs. A few seemed to stay as permanent tadpoles - I wish we’d kept them separate so we could see what happened to them.

In summer, making a “wigwam” (actually it was much more like a teepee) by wrapping sheets around the swing frame.

My friend and I stopping at the sweet shop on the way home from school every Friday and spending 10p each on the pic ‘n’ mix. Foam bananas, chocolate tools, strawberry foam shrimps, false teeth, candy sticks… Occasionally, we ordered “a quarter” of sweets from a big jar. My favourites included pineapple cubes, toffee bonbons and red hot konkers (spicy cinnamon sweets).

Cap rockets. You loaded them with cap paper which gave off hot sparks if you scratched it. Then you threw the rocket high in the air and it made a loud bang as it hit the ground.

The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. What an extraordinary world you could enter by reading it! The possibilities were limitless.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory also sparked my imagination. I longed to get into the glass elevator and press the button for some of the rooms we didn’t to visit in the story, such as the fizzy lemonade swimming pools.

Quiz Kids magazine.

The post arriving with a letter from a pen pal.

I loved the Royal Mail pen pal scheme, Hola! You could choose which country you wanted your new pen pals to come from, their age range and whether they were boys or girls. I wrote to girls from Italy and Japan for a few years.

Going to visit Granny (both of them). They lived a while away.

Visits from other relatives.

Visiting a relative who had a lovely pond with newts, frogs, etc.

Getting goldfish (oh the high hopes).

Little toys in cereal boxes.

Finding conkers. One year I had a little collection in a shoe box that I kept under my bed. I was so disappointed when it all went mouldy.

New crayons or markers.

Ice cream, a rare treat. It came in blocks and was always served with wafers.

Going swimming on a sunny summer day.

Eating raspberries straight from the canes in the garden. Raspberries and cream for breakfast...

This is one of the best thread's ever and lovely to read childhood memories through the decades.🤗

My Auntie Audrey coming to visit. She was my mum's best friend and she was just really fun and clever and incredibly good company. I was an odd, quiet child but she totally got me, never talked down to me, and just made me feel really valued. She was a very skilled sewer and would bring me amazing cuddly animals, each with a wonderful handwritten poem introducing it. I still have them all. She was just as brilliant with my DS despite being in her 80s when he was born. She passed away a couple of years ago and I miss her dreadfully - she was like a second mum to me and I was always so excited about seeing her.