What did you/your family consider a treat growing up that really wasn’t?

[ClassicStripe]

I’ve just randomly remembered that when I was younger me and my sister thought it was the most amazing treat to have our mum’s bath water after she was finished with it. She didn’t even use bubble bath so it was literally just lukewarm water but we absolutely loved it. This was in the early 90’s and we had regular hot warm bubble baths which makes it even stranger that we were so pleased by using mum’s old water!

My dad was a mechanic and one of his customers was a Swizzles salesman. When he came to collect his car, he’d open the boot and let my sister and I have our pick of anything inside. It was an absolutely magical sight for us - packed with brightly coloured treats. We loved his visits.

We used to have our bread delivered on Wednesdays and my sister and I would race in from school to be the one to have the fresh, crunchy crust with butter and jam. Delicious.
We also had the Corona man who would come down the lane on Saturday afternoons in his open sided van. It was like jewels going past - vivid colours which, looking back, were probably pretty toxic 😄

Being given anything like store bought chocolate, sweets of biscuits. There was simply not the money for treats like that (1950s). We were lucky if my mother had the ingredients to make scones. I used to love visiting my grandmother because she routinely had cream cakes, biscuits and fancy cakes.

My dad always brought us back doughnuts from air displays! That was a huge treat.
Or...we went to The Happy Eater once a year on Mother's Day and had "American Pancakes".

Another one for the Vienetta and Fresh Orange juice!

Pot noodle. We had one once a year in summer. My mum would fill a flask of hot water and we took them for a picnic. It was agony deciding which flavour to get. But the salty, e number laden deliciousness was out of this world.

Strawberries
A cornetto from the van!
A chocolate bar
chicken soup from the vending machine, after swimming!

Dream Topping.

We used to think stopping at a motorway service station was a massive treat.

Any motorway services was regarded as good, Gordano was the one we thought was the best, but the playground at Leigh Delamere was a good one.

Also, stopping in the laybys that used to be set on the side of A roads back in the 70s for a picnic on the way to somewhere.

It was a real treat to sit on the side of the road while cars flew by at 70mph eating sandwiches.

Someone else that went to pizzaland! It was my favourite, profiteroles for dessert.

That chocolate sauce that turns solid on ice cream. We never had it, but my godmother did. Along with ketchup and a soda stream. Dinner at her house was definitely a treat.

Angel Delight and Instant Whip!

The wooden snack bowl with compartments that we brought out on New Year's Eve and filled with crisps, pistachios, raisins etc.

My friend was one of five and her mum had a big people carrier with two seats in the boot, facing backwards. We all wanted to sit in those.

Pressing the button at the pelican crossing or on the car park ticket machine.

Having "a proper picnic with a cloth".

This reminds me of baking scones with my granny.
I didn't get 1:1 attention with any other adults, including my parents, so I liked the attention.
And she always praised me for being good at things (I'm not sure if I actually was)!
Then there was, of course, the eating of the scones!
We normally did this for family gatherings, maybe once a year, so we'd share the scones with everyone. But Granny and I would have an extra one each before that, just the 2 of us, seeing as we'd done all the hard work!

@Scrambledomelette@WashableVelvetI still have the shot-sized glasses that my father took his mouthful of morning orange juice from - it must have been a real luxury then!

I remember Mateys bubble bath. I collected the bottles and used them as skittles.

The first time I was allowed to lead my sibling to school on my own, aged 8 (dad stood at the end of the road where he could see us as far as the lollipop man). I felt so grown up!

The treat status soon wore off, mind....

The only time my siblings and I were ever allowed ketchup was when my Mum cooked liver.

My Mum also used to put ketchup on her roast potatoes with her roast dinner!🤔She'd pile her plate so high that she often couldn't eat them all so we'd get her leftovers with ketchup!!! I remember being so happy when we got offered those leftovers.

We'd get an occasional McDonald's if we'd been out for a day out in a Sunday, which was obviously a huge treat in the late 1980s. The only downside was that our Mum wouldn't allow us our own packet of small fries. We always had to share one small packet between two of us.

No we weren't poor. We were relatively minted in those days. I remember our Dad trying to get her to see reason each time about how ridiculous it was to make us share a small packet of fries with our burger at the age of 10! They even had a huge row about it once.

Just one of the many reasons none of us speak to her anymore. She can't understand why...

I was also so envious of a friend in the same road, whose mum bought fizzy pop from the Corona man when he came round door to door. We weren’t allowed…

Going round a friend's house and being allowed Ribena, when at home we could only ever have orange or lemon (😖) squash.

The Mum would pour the Ribena about a quarter of the glass high and then add water to the remaining glass. Bloody delicious! 😋

The only time we were ever allowed fizzy drinks was at Christmas time - massive treat!

Yep, bar the orangina in France, it was one 2 litre bottle of your choice per child at XMas.

Seedless grapes.

Green, sweet and tiny and only available at our greengrocers for about 2 weeks a year.

Now they all are Seedless, big and with tough skins. Where did the proper Seedless ones go?

The corona man delivering bottles of limeade and cream soda was a huge treat. Also the ice cream man coming round and having a little tub of ice cream with chocolate sauce..

Vienetta from KFC

Fizzy juice

box Maltesers to share with a blockbusters video

my friend’s family got Chinese take away and when I stayed over I would be given a small plate of fried rice, curry sauce and chips. To this day this is my absolute comfort food because I loved it so much but we never got take away at home

using my dinner money change to buy a sweetie from the shop after school. Usually a wham bar.

Eating out of a jar of peanut butter

vienetta