I gave Squiggle my favourite childhood toy a while back. It is a cuddly toy called a Popple; I literally slept with that thing every night for years and it is now well over 30 years old.
She loves it and took it to music class with her. The teacher confused it with a Wuzzle, another popular toy from the early 80s, which led to alot of discussion once we got home about Wuzzles, and other childhood toys. We even did a mini project; we researched the names of all of the Wuzzles, discussed the inspiration behind their design (each is a combination of two different animals), found out which one(s) a selection of people owned and also she designed her own Wuzzle too.
But I am starting to digress slightly! This all sparked off so many wonderful childhood memories and made me feel really quite nostalgic! I have lots of fond childhood memories; from fun filled adventures at my Grandparents’ house on Sunday afternoons, playing with my cousins and racing around the huge gardens of their pretty bungalow, to the time we came across a stray tortoise in an alleyway and took it home until we could reunite it with its owners.
I remember sleepovers with my cousin, top to tail in one bed, comparing (and sharing) our latest toys and making perfume from flowers to sell to neighbours! Alot of my childhood memories involve my cousins and playing at various relative’s houses. We spent much of our time doing that and I am so glad we did!
Of course we also spent time at home and I have lots of fond memories of that too; especially playing in our garden with a makeshift swing and adventures in our little playhouse. We had a little growing patch too, I forget what we grew but I remember it was fun!
We had a variety of pets over the years from bunnies and guinea pigs, to cats and dogs, rats, mice, gerbils and hamsters, ducks and chickens, fish, snakes – our house and garden looked like a petting farm! My first pet was a rabbit called Snowy when I was 4 or 5 years old. We also had a gorgeous Cavalier King Charles Spaniel called Cindy who I particularly adored. I used to dream of owning an animal rescue centre when I grew up.
My bedroom was decorated with Care Bears wallpaper and I had a large collection of these toys. Along with the other toys I have already mentioned, these were one of my favourite collections! I found a Buzzfeed list of must- have 80s and 90s childhood toys and discovered between my brother and I, we had most of them – we were very blessed, lucky children obviously!
As well as the more regular toys, my younger brother also used to have quite unusual hobbies and collections. One particular thing that springs to mind was a sword collection that he had displayed on his bedroom wall. I suspect it might have come from his love of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (I think they used to originally be called hero turtles? Am I right?!) But, you know, don’t tell him I shared that little snippet with you all 😉
I have no idea where his personal ones came from but I think they looked abit similar to these ones from Swords of Northshire. I haven’t bought from here personally but they have excellent reviews and a brilliant ethos. One review states: “the customer service was outstanding (Bryce Ronquille) and the level of detail available was amazing. The sword came excellently packed and in very short amount of time. Bryce kept us informed of the progress along the way and provided pictures before shipping of the final product, which was nothing less than a work of art. The workmanship in the sword was amazing, extremely well built and detailed. I cannot wait to add more of these to my collection.”
Customer service is their highest priority and their goal is to exceed expectations; they offer a variety of custom- made options, free shipping and 100% money-back guarantee if for any reason you are not satisfied (for 30 days after your purchase). These swords also have interesting origins; they are forged in Longquan, a city in China with over 2,600 years of swordmaking history. They would be quite the piece to own I’m sure!
But anyway, back to my childhood memories…
I was born in the very late 70’s (barely!) but grew up in the 80s. This means I have seen technology change and develop so much as I have grown up! When I was young I had a typewriter and I used it to write my own magazine – about dogs/ pets if I remember rightly! Not long after, when I was still quite little I got one of the early Commodore home computers. I loved it; I did lots of coding on it simply because everything had to be programmed manually. It all took hours! I also had a second generation games console (an Atari) too! Then much later, technology moved onto dial up internet connection… ah, who remembers that noise?! Of course, I didn’t own a mobile phone though until my teens – because they hadn’t been invented yet for consumer use!
Growing up, like now, music was a huge love. I would dance around my room doing karaoke; it used to annoy the heck out of my brother! I regularly watched Top Of The Pops (or was it Mini Pops?!) on the TV too and I remember bursting into tears once because someone changed the channel during my favourite song!!! Isn’t it weird what memories stick in our mind?! Above all, I remember recording the weekly top 10 countdown hits off the radio onto a cassette tape!
So many wonderful memories… I honestly could go on forever!
What are your favourite childhood memories? I would love to hear them!
*Diclosure: This is is a sponsored post.