Last night I checked myself into a caravan park for a much needed shower and to fill up with fresh water - most free campgrounds have bore water, which I'm not keen on drinking! It's one thing to shower with the set up I've got and the quite the delicious other thing to have hot water on tap. I'm having a coffee and watching the sunrise over the Bass Strait, and thought I'd take the opportunity to join in with the Ladies of Hive before I go back to more primitive camping without wifi!

1️⃣ What were your favorite games (or toys) as a child? Tell us about them! Do I still play any of them now?

Fun fact - I was Donkey Kong champion in Grade 6. It was a hand held portable thing like the image below, found on the internet. I also had one called Greenhouse, but that was stolen! I remember being allowed to play at lunchtime and the teachers set us up with competitions at lunchtime. Now students play games on their phones under the desk if you aren't careful to watch them! I loved it, but of course, I don't play it now. I wish I'd kept it though!

We also played with smurfs which you could get from the BP service station - they used to give them away or sell them in the late 70's.

^{Image Source}

I remember making a house for them out of a shoebox, with matchbox beds. I recall cutting carpet and cut the top off my finger with a pair of scissors. Funnily enough, I have a smurf in my van, right now! It's come om a roadtrip with me.

My sister and I had Father Abraham and the Smurfs on vinyl. Actually I think it's still in my vinyl collection.

"Beer beer, smurfing beer, you dont get drunk and it isnt dear"

What was it? Mushroom juice? Kombucha? Iced licorice tea?

2️⃣ What were your favorite foods as a child? Do you still enjoy them now?

Unusually for the time, I grew up in a vegetarian household. My parents had read about hormones in deli meat and chicken and cut them out immediately from their diet. The more they thought about it, the more they believed meat wasn't good for them and they felt better without it. To this day, they haven't eaten meat, some fifty years. So from six years old, I was vegetarian too. Mum used to make these great lentil rissoles and I still love it when she happens to make them. The trick was peanut butter I believe. I still can't perfect them the way she does.

I can't recall having a favourite food as a child - I liked pretty much everything. I just remember my sister being fussy - she HATED green beans as they squeaked on her teeth. Dad loved them and made a fuss over them to get her to eat them - they fed them to him in the army, he said. As I loved my Dad, of course I loved green beans. Mum used to make these tomato and oat cakes which sounds awful but I loved them as much as my sister hated them. It was one of those wierd '80's recipes and I bet Mum has it in a folder somewhere.

^{Image Source}

I do remember occasionally being allowed a sesame bar when we went down the coast. We didn't eat a lot of sugar or unhealthy food, but when we went on weekend surfing trips we'd buy what we called a 'super dooper salad roll' from the corner shop in Torquay. Try as I might, that milk bar doesn't seem to exist on the internet, but if you're reading from overseas, milk bars were a bit of an Australian icon - a place where you buy food, newspapers, lollies and so on.

^{Image Source}