P is for Public Presentation of Pure Nostalgia

I can't remember why I was in the Fleet Library back in April, probably looking for someone, but I happened to see what was in the 'Christmas Toy Display' cabinets, and found this. I also noticed Fleet and Crookham Historical Society, seem to have been renamed Fleet and Croockham Local History Group?

 

 [They've loaded back to front again, and I can't be arsed to switch them all round, it's only NTS imagery, and it leaves the chocolate wrappers down the bottom, near the Internet image of similar stuff, so it's sort of sorted itself out]

 

Definitely remember the Monarch seed packets!

 

It's funny how many of them I recognise, I'm only sixty-one, but a good half my life is 'ancient history' to almost everyone under thirty! Rudolf Hess, I met him twice, in my duties, yet, he's history, proper history to every single person born after about 1985, and many born in the years immediately before.

 

This went through Facebook the other day, it's frightening how many have gone, and how bland the choice actually is these days, I tried to buy a Topic the other day, and couldn't find one, Googled them, and they've gone! Just like that, partly my fault for not buying enough, "Use them or lose them", under Capitalism, the customer's never been right!

L is for Loose Ends

The last of the Christmas figurals, and it'll be back to more normal output, if equally occasional at the moment, but that's life! A mixed bunch and some of them from last year . . . 

 

Hobbycraft were clearly selling the end of the line we've seen over the last year or two, as they only had a few, back in November, and once they were gone, they weren't replaced, not even with a similar line? I managed to grab this deer family, as one day, a cake-decoration deer page is on the cards; there are loads and loads of them! Poured resin and about 40mm?

 

I also picked up this snowman, which reminded me that while we looked at the line two or three years ago, last year's post went to archive when I ran out of time, inclination or whatever else contributed to quite a lot going off to the long queue. It meant I could get this year's out as last year's is still in his [net] bag, along with the Santa' in a poly' bag.

 

The Mushrooms were from The Works, a bit of fun for a possible future project (fantasy secenry), and this year I saw them or similar assortments in several places including The Range and possibly either B&M or Home Bargains?

Can't remember where I saw this, but I think it might have been the aforementioned Home Bargains, along with The Nightmare Before Christmas, I saw a lot of Grinch 'Merch' as it's called these days - by a dying civilisation which insists on abbreviating everything - JLO, LOL!

 

I mentioned that I thought there might be a sequel to Nightmare in the offing when I started to see that everywhere, back in, sort of, Oct./Nov., but I think with both, it's just the inexorable commercialisation of Christmas, particularly by the toy and home-furnishing industries off the back of Holywood? But it was a very inexpensive white-button walker, which is a slowly-growing side-collection, in main-part thanks to robots and Halloween!

 

I think we did look at the Malteezer deer last year, this year's edibles included this Santa Clause from Marks & Spencer, which was illustrated as being like an Aero inside, but was actually the more solid and disappointing texture of a Wispa - which I've hated from the day they were launched!

I forgot to properly check out the edible cake decorations, this year, but managed to find this in Sainsbury's a day or two before the big day, we looked at all the ranges/brands a year or two ago, but this was a new colourway of one of the Santa's from Cake Decor.

 

While I think this lead flat is similar to the set we looked at a while ago, this one possibly coming from Chris or Adrain last year sometime (2023), and also held over, I brought it forward with the Hobbycraft images! I think a similar sculpt can be seen at the back of the upper set's image in this post, which, it turned-out, are Hafer, but this one has a different base and will be from another set, how many were there!

 

Finally, while the above are mostly in some sort of chronological order of when they acme in or were shot, (or make narrative sense to me!), this was an early purchase which them hung around, unshot, and uneaten until the other night, when I managed both! Hence, the fogging of the chocolate, I think?

A departure for Kinder I think, I don't remember seeing them before, but they may be a year or two old as a concept, the prizes are meant to be tree-hangers, and obviously it's a Christmas-specific thing, being a merry festive snowman!

A is for Advent Calendar

Another occasional regular at this time of year! B&M was the only place I found doing a cheapie generic, with the sort of non-licenced or product-placed chocolates I consider traditional, although they were an import from the continent in the mid-1970's, quite exotic to us kids, back at the time!

 

My own 'hopes' for the coming year are best not divulged right now, although you may get to read them in the next few days, but, yeah, I wish you all the best for what promises to be one of the most interesting years of my entire life, probably the most entertaining too, but happiness may be in short supply for most!

H is for Hodgepodge Hash of Halloween Horrors

I'm hoping to get another post out before midnight tonight, and it should publish before the witching-hour in the US, as I get another five or six hours, after my shift, to facilitate the aim, but in case the UK readers miss it, before bed, here's a few other bits and bobs which have a seasonal element, and have mostly crossed my door in the last five or six weeks!

Remembering I found a set last year, when I saw these in B&M (Morrison's last year) I had to have them, and like last year's, they were lovely, in the same generic tutti-fruity sort of supposedly 'strawberry' way! Indeed, I would say they came from the same source, and I didn't see any others, not even in Morrison's?

 

I seem to recall these were Aldi, but they might have been Lidl? More edibles, best kind of seasonal stuff is edible stuff! Fondant-centred, [not very] monster mice, one a sort of truffle-cream with rice crispies, the other white-chocolate fondant, nom-nom-nomnivore! Obviously a shit-shot of the white one, but you can't re-shoot something, if you've eaten it!

 

Having grabbed two walkers, as the only thing worth buying in a garden centre last year, I felt I also had to grab these, while muttering darkly to myself about 'another side-collection', but you can blame that yellow Christmas stocking robot who survived for several decades in the attic! These are pull-overs, in that cold, clammy silicon type mega-soft, stretchy rubber, which a generic white-button body underneath, and while two are the same design under the paint, the other had no second version, and all three were equally distributed? Asda for the win!

 

I would add - having mentioned them - that the Garden Centres had very poor Halloween displays this year, and seemed to clear them quickly, like over a week ago, they are too desperate to get their Christmas 'markets' up and running!

I'd found these online, and don't know the maker/brand, but if I see them out and about, they will find home-room in that slowly growing 'walker' sub-collection, I actually found a bunch of the other white-button walker soldiers a while back, but forgot to shoot them before they went to storage, so there's a future post!

 

Finally, these came from Lidl about two weeks ago, ghost tea-lights! I think I might paint-in the eyes and mouths of the other two to match the white one, black paint for the orange one and white for the black candle?

Apologies for spelling but Mozilla ad-ons don't seem to be working properly tonight, and I have no spellchecker!

E is for Easter Bunnies - The Half-Sensible Bit!

Well, it was a bit of fun, and not as expensive as I thought it might be, some of them were only a quid or two, but I have got about 20-quids worth of chocolate rabbits to eat, just as I was sliming-down down that middle-age spread, having gone back to work, at something semi-physical!

 

But I didn't purchase every bunny I found, just a cross-section of the more normal ones, I regret the grinning Kinder Bunny, as it's really in the class I avoided, but I console myself with the fact that at least I know what it will taste like!

 

Aldi's had a plethora of Bunnies, including a colour variant of the one I obtained (left), which was the 'specially selected' hazelnut one, and a more colourful range of both upright and squatting milk-chocolate ones . . . maybe next year! The Aldi Rabbit also won several of the online taste-tests, so I'm saving it till last!

 

I seem to recall touching on the Rabbit Wars, a few years ago, when Lindt finally had to admit the basic shape predated their Rabbit by decades, allowing Aldi, Lidl and others to turn-on the taps which have led to today's choice. Since when there has been the Caterpillar Cake War, and regular flare-ups!

 

The Lindt, though, remains a nicely smooth 'European' chocolate, and comes in about six sizes, of which the larger ones tend to have more limited availability, and I only got the smallest three, having half a mind how the posts would develop!

 

I didn't see Lidl's Lindt clone, but they got too confident after the previous round of Rabbit Wars, and made one so similar (in packaging) they had to destroy tons of them a couple of years ago! But their upright did run to two colours, of which I took the blue, naturally, but pink was there!

 

Rejected uprights included the three licensed or 'product placed' Rabbits from Smarties, Milkybar and M&M's, all stupid looking, and while OK for kids, a further example of how a few corporations have literally turned us into consumer-sheep in a few decades, nasty!

 

And don't get me wrong, many years ago I asked for a Smarties egg, and still have the mug, it's one of my favourite mugs, but firstly, that was when A) an egg in a mug was as good as it got, and B) Smarties still tasted nice, and of chocolate, the last few times I've bought smarties I've regretted it, they're flowery-chalky pap now!

 

The three uprights I did end-up with included the Cadbury's Peter, because it was Peter, not because I like their chocolate, I don't! The Lidl Favorina and the Kinder, if I'd been thinking straighter, I'd have got the Thornton's and shot the Kinder, but given the amount of Kinder on the blog, and the fact there may be a toy worth a post in its belly, means it happened the way it happened!

 

Bare chocolate Rabbits were around, and while the Thornton's was expensive for what is now no more than another shelf-brand, I think most of their shops have gone now, just a few dozen franchise 'boutiques' mostly shared with other brands, like Ferrero (Kinder), while the Favorina (Lidl) was too daft-looking, another one for the kids!

 

While this one wasn't as big as its message gives the impression it was, to the casual observer, rejected for being daft-looking! I think I shot it in Aldi?

 

These three all seem to have used the same contractor, or the same commercially available 'off the shelf' mould-tool? From the left we have Tesco's, Morrisons' and Asda's, with only the wrapping being different, I will eat these in sequence, to see if the taste differs? Follow-up in twelve-months? Possibly!

 

The Tesco came in four different pastel wraps, I chose the green, while the Asda also came as a white-chocolate Bunny with a suitably pale artwork and polka-dots! Interestingly though, the online artwork for 'my' Asda Bunny shows a much darker-brown colourway, which may be last year's version, still being used for publicity shots?

 

Another upright and more animated, smaller, filled Rabbits from Nomo, these were in Morrison's, but I think I did see them elsewhere, and I was tempted by the upright, he would have improved the group-shot above, but my several experiences of gluten-free pies have not been good (the pastry is like cardboard), so I stopped myself, and will never know how good or bad they might have been!

 

I can't remember if I shot these in Morrison's or Sainsbury's, the latter, I think, but again too cartoony for me, and more eggy than Rabbity, so pretty much off the parameter list, before I saw them, but Belgian chocolate is never bad?

 

Speaking of Sainsbury's, theirs was by far the prettiest of the wrappings, with a rich greenish-gold that gave Lindt a run for their money, without aping the Swiss one so close as to risk a court-case, design was the closest too, but it wouldn't stand-up, having a bowed base, and needs to be propped!

A comparison with the Aldi and one of the similar trio, to compare with the previous shot.

 

If you go ordering Chocolate Bunnies online, you find lots of smaller, regional or bespoke brands offering similar fayre, of which I was rather taken by the semi-realistic wrap on this one from the Candy Store, but I wouldn't trust chocolate hollow-Rabbits or eggs ordered online to arrive in one piece! And with those ears it might be a Hare!

 

With the many types out there, the alternate wraps, and the regular changes in artwork, one hopes somebody, somewhere, is annotating them all, as I'm too busy with toy figures to disappear down a Chocolate Rabbit hole!