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!

Iceland pizza followed by an apple strudle. My favourite dessert to this day and nothing beats an iceland strudle.

My biggest treat was being allowed to drink the juice from a tin of pineapple rings. Nectar!

or being allowed half of a square of the jelly my mom made up. I miss jelly. I might get some next week in my shop.

Thought of some more: being allowed something out of a vending machine… ever
Actually buying something a service station, we took picnics. In fact buying any food on a day out

Money for Chips and gravy after going swimming with a friend

Beinf sent to the shop for veg and being allowed a 10p mix with the change.

Branded drinks: we had panda pop, rola cola etc. Should add we didn’t have fizzy stuff till we were older. We were allowed D&B

Oh just remember soda stream, we finally got one i think it was free with a catalogue offer or something ( 90s) and it was shit after all those years of wanting one 😂

I’m scrolling through this thread expecting something to jog my memory. But I can’t get you and your sister’s delight at hopping into your mum’s lukewarm bath water out of my mind. Kids can be such wonderful weirdos. I think I’m going to be grinning about your post off and on all day.

The left over bottles of little milk at school, that were left warming on the class windowsill all day, after the crate had been collected, and given as a treat to the chosen 3 or 4.
Those tiny single serve cereal boxes. I can't remember where or why, but it was definitely the only time I ever got Coco Pops.

no!!! That would be gross 🤢 😂

@dowagerqueenie Absolutely pressing buttons! My brother and I used to fight over them. If my parents announced that we were going to a museum, our first question was always “will there be buttons to press”? In Germany, we saw a phone box with a motorised door. Two nine year old boys we were there with loved to play in this phone box.

Playing with the switches in the car was a huge treat at the age of four.

Even playing in a playground felt like a treat: it was easy to keep us entertained in summer holidays.

One step up from this was visiting a castle, or big ruin, if it had lots of steps and towers to climb. (The fully furnished ones like Leeds castle were as boring as hell.) The best one I remember was the Bishop’s Palace at St David’s in Wales, and Deal Castle in Kent.

A 'Sara Lee' Gateau 😋

🤒 Banana flavoured penicillin medicine! 😂

This thread is lovely!

Getting ice cream from the ice cream van. That van music brings back those memories instantly.

Little Kellogg's cereal boxes.

Fizzy pop. My mum would start buying lots of cheap fizzy pop a few weeks before Christmas as a festive treat I guess. Things like cherryade, limeade, orangeade etc from Morrisons. She’d also get iced fingers as a treat on a Friday when she did the food shop.

Ice cream van ice cream is a treat though - you need a hefty loan to afford it!

The one cocktail cherry in a can of fruit cocktail! There was always only one and we would all fight to get it.

We got Chinese takeaway once a year for mums birthday 😊

'Milkman' Orange

I'm only early 40s but loads has changed since I was little.
KFC was a once a year, Xmas eve treat
Ditto the cinema
Sweets were only bought on a Sunday morning when we walked to get the papers with my dad
The car was massive treat! Before we got one, we cycled and bussed it everywhere
Kids TV. Always devastating when we hit 5pm and the boring adult shows appeared!

I still love Angel Delight and get a fancy for it every now and again!

I used to buy strawberry, banana and choc. Get little glass bowls, make the flavours one at a time and let them set before making and pouring the next one carefully on top. Repeat for as many colours as you can be arsed to do ... Ta-Da - Stripey Angel Delight 😊

My 3 bigger girls can still remember waiting for it all to set - feeling it was hours lol.

An M&S sandwich in front of the tv after the dentist. The prawn mayo ones were the most expensive- 99p. They are nowhere near as nice now.

And yes to the cocktail cherry in the tinned fruit salad.

The day the 'coal man' came to make a delivery into our coal bunker and we could have the fire going again.

Being allowed to use the wooden tongs to fish out clothes from the wash side of mum's twin tub and then putting the lid down on the other side to get it to spin. I still remember those early mornings with the twin tub going next to the sink, the smells and sounds. Takes me right back to my childhood.

Depends if you are a child of the 70s/80s or a child of the 90s! By the 90s, they'd changed the many layers to the crap that we are offered now (few layers and certainly no crispy chocolate like before). Back in the 1980s, a Vienetta was the height of sophistication and would only be bought at Christmas or for special occasions, I still hold a grudge towards the person at Walls who thought the newer version is in any way the same thing! I watched a TV show a while back where somebody at Walls was gloating about how much cheaper it was to make Vienetta now and I thought of course it is, it's not the same product at all.

I've remembered another one !

Ice cream float. Big cheap bottle of cream soda. Cheapest tub of vanilla ice cream.

Big blob of ice cream in a large glass of cream soda (make sure there's room for it to foam up!)

Again in the 90s and naughties my kids thought this was an amazing treat !!

Having a small glass of baileys before bed when we stayed with our nan.
Also being able to eat bournvita off the spoon when we stayed with my aunt.
And as others have mentioned, licking the bowl after my mum made cake. That was a real treat 😋

Instant Whip aka poor man's Angel Delight

Wow - that's brought back some memories! I've had a love of banana flavoured drinks ever since the days of getting flavoured medicine! We should still be offered this as adults! Ha!