Loves of times gone by

St Valentine’s Day.

A day to reminisce. A day to look back and ponder those loves from the past. Those important yesteryear moments.

Sigh.

Like the Lincoln biscuit. Gone but not forgotten. Round and bobbly and no longer around.

Celery Soup. Tinned Celery Soup. I think that vanished from the shops some time in the 1980s. Well, I haven’t seen it since then, anyway. I’ve been fancying some of that lately as well…

In the freezer, there used to be a little round plastic tub with a cardboard lid that simply peeled off; you left it to stand for five minutes and then enjoyed its tangy freshness. Super Mousse or something, I think it was called.

There used to be a pack of chocolate biscuits, each one packaged in a wrapper that featured a different farmyard character. The only one I can remember is Cowslip the Cow; and the reason why I remember this, is, because, I’m devastated to say, the last packet I bought of these biscuits had no Cowslip and two of one of the other characters in it. Sigh.

Bitza Pizza crisps. Oh, how I loved Bitza Pizza crisps. They were my Saturday night treat, along with a bottle of Slimline Bitter Lemon when I was on my sponsored diet about five hundred years ago. The clever thing about these crisps is they were triangular, fluffy, full of holes, and tasted of delicious pizza. I thought so anyway. And they helped me to lose weight. Sigh. Ahh. Mmmmm. Slurp.

Two things that weren’t ‘flavour of the month’ back then (see what I did there? Hehehe!) were in the ice-cream line. I think these are still made today, but doubt they’ll be the same as they were in the old sepia days when they used to give me either brain freeze or a broken tooth or two. Jubblies, or a Jubbly, was the first one. A frozen drink in a strange-shaped cardboard package where you had to tear the corner and suck the frozen goodness out of there. If that didn’t give me brain freeze, I’d end up with a soggy cardboard package. The second one, I think, may have been called a Screwball – a cone of ice-cream with a bubble gum ball at the bottom. I was never a fan of that bubble gum. Rock hard to start off with, and then tasteless.

That just reminded me of another sweet, which may or may not be around today. The gobstopper. An apple-sized ball of layered aniseed and other stuff, with a centre of, in my case, rock-solid aniseed. It would take a whole day to get through the many layers, and the sweet was so big, it had to be removed from the mouth to speak. And breathe, if I remember correctly.

I wouldn’t thank you for a gobstopper today; which is probably a good thing, and a sign that some changes are for the better. I still miss the good old days, but at least I can remember them fondly.

Now though, it’s back to today. And thankfully, time to start taking these Valentine’s decorations down once again.

Back to normality…