I have fond memories of bouncing around the back garden on my Space Hopper as a kid (one of the reasons why I chose it as the icon for my garden toys posts), and whilst it might not have been the most practical or energy efficient form of transport it was a lot of fun. Â I especially loved the sound it made when bouncing on a hard surface such as concrete. Â It had an almost metallic ring to it, as the air reverberated around inside the rubber of the Space Hopper itself.
Nowadays I’m probably a bit too big to hop around the back garden like mad on a piece of inflated orange rubber, but I can take the fun inside with these rather nifty little Clockwork Space Hoppers, available from Stocking Fillers. Â These little guys hop around frantically for ages once you’ve wound them up, and better still they come in backs of two (one in the classic orange colour, the other a dark blue) so you can even have indoor Space Hopper races!