Toys Every 90s Girl will Remember

I've been feeling a little nostalgic lately. Maybe it's because I've found the whole 'being a grownup thing' particularly challenging over the past few months what with quitting my job and having to go through the painful process of deciding what I actually want to do with my life all over again. Then again, maybe it's just that this sudden Pokemon craze that's descended has brought out the 90s kid in me.

Either way, in an attempt to throw off the shackles of adulthood for 20 minutes or so and the make the most of Throwback Thursday, I thought I'd take a trip down memory lane and make a list of all the best girlie toys from that glorious decade (that, much as I loved, I hope will never be repeated fashion-wise) we call the 90s.

Polly Pocket

Before Polly Pocket had a movie or wore rubberised shoes, she lived in houses that really could fit in your pocket! I was obsessed. I had the treehouse, the church, the funfair, the waterpark that I had to play with on top of a tea towel because it continuously leaked. The fun never ended with Polly...until someone stepped on her.

Tamagotchi

When Tamagotchis first hit the scene we all thought 'the future is officially here!' I mean, the pixilated little cat or dog on the screen could tell you when it was hungry or sick. This was practically artificial intelligence! (Bear in mind that this was before anyone had even conceived the idea of mobile phones with built-in cameras.)

Baby All Gone

She ate the cherries! She ate them right off the spoon! It was magical! Sure, within 2 weeks of being out of the box her hair made her look kind of like a troll doll, but it was magical all the same.

Puppy in my Pocket

They were adorable! And it wasn't just puppies. We had the kittens, the ponies, the bunny rabbits! And then there were the Baby Surprise bundles! I could barely take the excitement of opening up one of those to see how many babies were in there. It was more than my teeny little brain could bear!

anthill/ Via eBay

Barbie

Sure, Barbie has been a staple in every toy box since the 1950s, but there were some pretty fabulous Barbie dolls that came along in the 90s. Remember Workin' Out Barbie, Doctor Barbie, Teacher Barbie with the talking blackboard and what about Barbie's beloved canine friend, Ginger, who actually walked? Memories!

monsdollshop / Via eBay.com

Beanie Babies

Collect Beanie Babies they said. They'll be worth a fortune they said. How many of us still have a bin bag full of these in the attic, still waiting for the day when we can finally cash in on them?

Cabbage Patch Kids

To this day I can't decide whether they're creepy or adorable, but I loved mine all the same. Angie Peg was not just a doll. She was a member of the family!

ivy19342010/ Via eBay

Teddy Ruxpin

AKA my best friend for the first 6 years of my life. AKA live-in babysitter. I would sit for hours and listen to him tell the same story over and over again. To this day I don't know why my parents didn't consider investing in more cassettes because I can only imagine how grating "My friend, my friend, is what I'd like to be" got after several thousand renditions.

panddsstore/ Via eBay

Dream Phone

I actually still have my Dream Phone and have been known to bring it out during girlie get-togethers after a few glasses of wine. It's just as crushing to be rejected by an automated fictional man in my mid-twenties as it was when I was nine.

Lovable Bears

A step up from the Tamagotchi since you could actually hold it in your hand, it was scented like some kind of fruit and it couldn't die!

Vivid/ Via Amazon

Sky Dancers

I can imagine that modern-day health and safety would have something to say about anything so pointy that's designed to fly through the air at speed and, if you were ever unlucky enough to get hit in the face with one, I'm sure you'll understand why.

Furby

What was the must-have toy of 1998 also turned out to be the most pointless toy of all time.

vintagebywinters/ Via eBay

Fashion Wheel

The combinations were endless! (Or at least it seemed that way to a six year old.) And we all had that one head we hated that we'd only ever match with ugly outfits as some kind of punishment for daring to exist. No? Just me?

barbiegirl1232011/ Via eBay

Talkgirl

(Although some of us ended up getting the Tallboy for our birthdays even the the Talkgirl was pink, said the word 'girl' on it and was therefore infinitely more cool.) I distinctly remember recording several takes of Lou Bega's Mambo Number 5 on mine. Luckily for everyone that tape is lost forever.

Spice Girls Dolls

You know, to go with my Spice Girls lolly pops, t-shirts, bag and (wait for it) fluorescent orange puffa jacket.

You know what? I enjoyed that little slice of nostalgia! It was nice to sit back and think about the good old days when other people were responsible for washing the dishes, paying the bills and waiting on hold for 45 minutes to be connected to HMRC. Alas, now it's time to return to the grown-up world...as soon as Finding Nemo is over.

Pokemon No-Go: My Pokemon Go Experience

In case you (somehow!) haven't heard, Pokemon has made an almighty comeback recently with the release of the new smartphone game, Pokemon Go. The world is going crazy for it, partly because, let's be honest, who doesn't love a Jigglypuff and partly because the game features augmented reality, which is basically just a fancy gamer way of saying you can use your phone camera to see the real world around you, but it's full of Pikachus and Squirrels.

My initial reaction to the news that the entire world was suddenly overrun with people rushing around trying to collect virtual Pokemon was, "Wait...what?"

Aside from the fact that the whole thing seemed completely bizarre to me, I wasn't exactly thrilled to see another time-draining app hit the market that would have us all glued to our phones. I mean, call me old-fashioned, but I'm getting tired of the glazed expression on my niece and nephew's faces as their brains melt into Minecraft, Roblox and the never-ending drudgery of flinging resentful birds at smug green pigs.

What ever happened to the pure joy of an entire afternoon spent playing with a cardboard box?

But, as Pokemon fever continued to spread and more and more people tried to convince me of the benefits ("People get out and about more when they're looking for Pokemon. If anything it encourages a healthy lifestyle!") I decided to give it a go. After all, I am a nineties kid. In my heyday I had 5 shiny Pokemon cards!

So I downloaded the app. I have to admit, when I first saw a Squirtle prancing around the living room my inner child squealed with joy. Into the Pokeball he went and (ta da!) I had my first Pokemon!

...Now what?

I could see there was another Pokemon hanging out at the end of the street so off I trotted and caught myself a Pidgey. It wasn't as fun the second time. Perhaps the novelty had already worn off or perhaps the fact that it was a Pidgey of all things was just too bitter of a disappointment. Either way, I lost interest and cut my Pokemon hunt short.

By the end of the day I had five Pokemon and had spent an entire car ride shouting at my mother, "Slow down! They're all getting away!" But I was already bored of staring at my poorly dressed avatar running aimlessly through the streets. And what was I even meant to do with these Pokemon now that I had them? I'd spotted some kind of Pokemon Gym during the car journey, but what was it for? And would I have to hang out on the M4 slip road to access it? Surely that's not safe!

My Pokemon adventure was short lived. By the end of the day I was totally over it and deleted the app to make room for a 'gym playlist' I made for a workout I know in my heart of hearts I will never actually get around to doing. I tried to get excited about all the Jinxes and Pidgettos that were loitering around, but I just couldn't get into it. I didn't like having my nose pressed to the phone screen, waiting for the next adorable little virtual weirdo to pop up. And let's not even get into the whole 'people accidentally walking off cliffs' thing.

I'm sure my opinion won't matter much to Nintendo though. Pokemon Go has already added more than $7 billion to the company's market value and I think it's fair to say that in many instances the game has already reached full-blown obsession mode. When I saw the video of hundreds of people swarming Central Park to catch a Vaporeon I had the same sense of confused disbelief as I did when the Spice Girls announced their reunion in 2007.

Once again it seems the 90s are coming back to haunt us. I guess if I can get over seeing a 32 year old Mel B trying to make metallic knee-high boots work in the twenty-first century then I can get over watching my adult friends running through the streets chasing Charmanders. But, seriously you guys, I draw the line at the return of Manpris.

I'm Back (And in Desperate Need of a Latte)!

I'm back! I've crawled out from the corporate rock I've been stuck under for the past few months. I've thrown off the shackles of business meetings, conference calls and tossing and turning in a pool of sweat at 3am wondering if my new shoes for the office strike the right balance between 'I'm a corporate highflier' and 'I'm a Margaret Thatcher look-alike'. I'm slowly weaning myself off the 5 gallons of caffeine a day it took me to get through my working day without falling asleep at the wheel (sure, there's still a lot of twitching going on, but slow progress is better than no progress).

 I'm finally starting to feel like myself again!

 It's been a while since I last sat down to write a blog post so I apologise if I'm rusty. It's not that I purposely discarded my beloved blog or forgot about all you wonderful people who enjoy a little dose of my madness every week. The truth is, I was so swamped at work that, slowly but surely, without me even realising it, my blog ended up in in the pile labelled 'things I used to do when I had the time'. It was a hefty pile. Yoga was in there too along with reading, going to the gym, spending time with my fiends and, increasingly, eating meals and sleeping.

 There weren't nearly enough hours in the day!

 

So, I took the plunge (for better or for worse), discarded my 'sensible' boring, black, low-heeled shoes, and quit my high-flying, corporate job. As tempting as the image of myself as a fancy business woman with a bank account healthy enough to justify a closet full of Laboutins was, at the end of the day, I'm not a fancy business woman. I hate graphs. And schmoozing. So in September I'm heading back to university to train as an English teacher. Because what could be better than talking about books for a living? Except, of course, talking about books for a living and getting paid enough to justify a closet full of Laboutins.

 But, hey, you can't have it all!