Looking at an old chemistry set from the 70s/80s.

I found the stickers! They were in my old diary. They’re cute, huh? These were the pictures I tried to replicate, and then I made one of my own design in that style.

Read on to find out what I wrote in my diary at age 7…

Let's see how good my memory was. I managed to find some pictures of the packaging for Superstar Sindy. There are two sizes, and I seem to remember having the larger one. I downloaded these several months ago, and unfortunately I can't find the original images, nor does TinEye show any matches. So my apologies to the original photographers. If I do find out where I got them, I will credit you appropriately.

Here's my original memory:

My mum also threw away the original packaging for my Superstar Sindy. I used to keep it under my pillow and look at it every night before I went to sleep. There were photos of the other dolls in the range, and they had such cool 80s fashion. I think one had glass-style boots. I totally wanted that one.

So, let the healing begin!

My niece is five now, and I've been trying to teach her the clapping games. I tried to remember some of the songs we used to sing as kids.

Before we start, please remember that these songs are products of their time and therefore might be considered a little offensive at times. When teaching my niece, I will alter these to make them acceptable, but I'm documenting them here just for a record of my school days.

Ai Shu Shweila

I don't know how this name is meant to be spelt. It's pronounced like "eye", "shoe" and "shweila" to rhyme with the name "Layla/Leila". I can't find a record of this particular variant. I've also forgotten how the first line goes, so I've taken it from others that I've seen online.

I've been wondering for over 25 years what that crazy programme was that I used to watch as a toddler! Thanks to Michael Gove, I now know what it is! Holy cremola, this is some weird crap. No wonder I'm so messed up.

The unravelling jumper and the technicolour backgrounds! Oh, I remember that so well now! I feel 3 years old again!

I tell you something, if I really want to win an auction on eBay, no one will ever be able to outbid me 😉

It started with a painful childhood memory. You see, the first ever Sindy I got, as a present at the tender age of three, was the Superstar Sindy. Sindyyy, Superstar Sindy, you're everything I want to be! Superstar Sindy, dance with me! You're everything I want to be! Superstar SINDY! And she had this cool silver microphone. And for some reason, my mum let me take the doll with me to school, complete with all accessories. In hindsight, she may well have tried to convince me to leave them at home, but that's not important.

What's important is that I did take them. And one day, the nursery teacher — we shall call her Mrs A — didn't like that I was playing with the microphone while she was talking to the class about something or other, and she said to give the microphone to her and she'd look after it. I didn't want to, because I knew, even at the age of three, that grown-ups rarely keep their word. But she pressured me and in the end she took it from me and put it in a box and I never saw it again.

So you see, I was right to never trust a grown-up at their word.

In any case, it had a lasting effect on me. I still feel the pang of loss. Even when my little sister, three years later started nursery, I asked her to keep an eye out for it, being so upset I deluded myself into thinking it must still be there. More years later, when other girls I knew started nursery, I plaintively made the same request of them.

Wait! For seriously! No! How the heck did I not know about this?!! Apparently my nephew has been watching this on Kix! for some time now and I had no idea! Although I vaguely remember hearing his singing the theme and asking where he learnt it. Hmm. Only a couple of days ago he just caught the end credits and that reminded me to go looking.

See, I knew they were planning a series 2 for real this time, because was it Chalopin or Ryshpan who said the second series work was underway on the DVD interviews, but I am so seriously late to the party. I just haven't been keeping up. Rabid Fangirl is losing her touch 🙁

So as soon as I heard that the second series was out (I'm soooooo late to the party!) I had to go search on youtube. I must have read an old post that said it was only in French at the moment, so I didn't hunt down an English version. Luckily my French is good enough to understand most of what they are saying, even if there is a big lag between hearing the words and understanding the words.

So far, it's actually all right. I was scared they'd do an Adult Icarus and ruin everything (see NAEZ), but they've kept the style faithful to the original, and even kept the theme tune. I like that the voice casting (for the French version; a review says the English voice cast is pretty awful) is also faithful to the original. Zia seems less helpless in the new series and I'm not so keen on the way Esteban's facial expressions are animated; it seems to change his character somewhat*. But overall, I'm not disappointed.

So I've just ordered my DVD set and I'll do a full review when I've watched it!

_{* I remember who he reminds me of the way they've animated him. Ben 10 Series 1. Seriously!}

OMG!!!!
The cast list [Edit: the link is dead and the Wayback Machine doesn't seem to have cached it either.]
OMG!!!

Whoa, it's weird to imagine him as Esteban! All this time we were told Esteban was voiced by Adrian Knight, and he wasn't; that was Tao.

I still don't have the DVD 🙁 I'm so poor!