7 ice creams from my childhood

I love ice cream. When I am eating an ice cream, it makes me feel like someone really important, like John Major or someone.

These days I indulge my ice cream obsession with entire tubs of Ben and Jerry's, Haagen Dazs and Baskin Robbins (when I can find it here in the UK). Grown up ice cream. The kind of ice cream you eat when you have PMS and a mortgage. However, the other day me and the mister found ourselves in bed, singing the Gino Ginelli advert jingle (really, don't ask). This led me to thinking about the other frozen treats that used to rattle round my belly on a regular basis.

Some of these are still available now, but we don't really have an ice cream man round here anymore. There was an ice cream man in the local park when I was at university, but I think he mainly sold drugs.

1. Fab -

I think this was originally just made from whatever the people at Lyons had lying around, but it worked. Vanilla with chocolate sprinkles, then plain vanilla, then a strawberry ice lolly bit at the end. I don't know about anyone else, but I was always vaguely disappointed when I'd finished the first part, and was only left with plain old ice lolly bits. They should have covered the whole thing in sprinkles. Speaking of which -

2. Nobbly Bobbly -

This was more like it! And with a chocolate middle! My friends and I first bought this from the ice cream man because, to our eight year old ears, the name sounded rude and hilarious. But it soon became the lolly of choice for a long time. I saw a box of these in Morrisons the other day, and it put a song in my heart.

3. Mini Milk -

These were very kind of 'meh' back in the day, but that didn't stop us eating them by the dozen. I think they really were just frozen milk, and they made your teeth go a bit funny to eat them. I think they were popular with parents, because they only cost 20p or something. I still feel like Mini Milks are mediocre at best, even though this wrapper has pictures of cows on it.

4. Twister -

Tangy with a twist! I don't know if that was their slogan or not, but it should have been.The vanilla ice cream part was delicious, and was offset by the weird green fruit tasting stripes. Again, I was always disappointed when all the ice cream was gone, and i was only left with the strawberry bit in the middle. Why did I never just buy vanilla ice cream? Because you're not the boss of me, that's why.

5. Screwball -

Raspberry ripple in a plastic cone, and when you got down to the bottom there was a bubblegum waiting for you! For some reason, I always harboured a vague hope that one day, the bottom of the cone would contain a prize rather than a bubblegum. I realise it would have to have been a really small prize, like a Micro Machines car, but in my head that was feasible. However, most kids would have probably tried to eat whatever was at the bottom of the cone, so that's why it was always a bubblegum. Stupid kids, ruining my fun.

6. Funny Feet -

A simple but genius idea - strawberry ice cream shaped like a foot. The ice cream itself was lovely if I remember correctly. The fact that it was shaped like one of the most unappetising parts of the human body never put us kids off, although it probably should have done. Sadly, Walls' follow up products, Wacky Windpipes and Barmy Bile Ducts, never really took off.

7. Feast -

One of my personal favourites; I still occasionally eat them. A chocolate lover's heaven - a chocolate coating embedded with nuts, then chocolate ice cream, and finally, a solid chocolate middle! In the war between chocolate and strawberry for supremacy in the freezer, I think it's clear which side I come down on. Especially when there are nuts involved.

Honourable mention - ice pops -

I LOVE ice pops - I always have a couple of dozen in my freezer at any one time. Sometimes you are so thirsty and hot that a normal drink just will not cut it. That's when I break out the frozen sticks of joy, but I have to watch myself with them - I can easily eat ten at a time. In fact, I once ate a whole bag of ice cubes, and ended up with a terrible stomach ache afterwards. My favourite flavours were definitely cola, turquoise and blue. 

And finally - here is the song that me and the mister found ourselves singing in bed. We are so rock and roll.