Tickets, Money, Passport?

Hands up who watched the Abba documentary last night? No one? Right just me then. Well it was fabulous. I was transported back to a time that, well, time forgot. It was the 30th anniversary of their Eurovision win.

I'd forgotten how much I loved them. How upset I was that I didn't get to see them in concert when they toured in '77, how my mum tried to make up for it by letting me go to see the film instead (remember I was only 9) and how probably the main reason my new best friend became my new best friend was that she had actually seen them in concert in Sydney.

I had all the paraphernalia, t-shirts, posters, key rings, socks. Hell I even had a wall hanging - which I took a photograph of and pretended it had been them. In.Real.Life. Mind you I did that with my Ace KISS doll too with much less success.

My best friend at the time (not the new best friend mentioned above who came along much later) was Swedish - indeed she still is - and for me that was like being one phone call away from them. Can you imagine, actual Swedish people in the suburbs of Perth - you couldn't ask for a more direct link! Marie even had the first ABBA Album - we used to play it all the time. Naturally being blonde and nordic she got to be Agnetha; being me, I was Frida - but that was OK because she was always my favourite. It was win-win.

Abba were the kind of band that your grandparents liked. My nanna used to use the old 'it's nice to hear people sing properly instead of the shouting we get these days'. I expect if a stroke hadn't taken her The Cheeky Girls would have done. The upshot of this was that we'd given Nanna a copy of Arrival, she then taped it and gave the LP to me. Result!

Abba were also the cause of a rather embarssing school anecdote. When asked to write a story I wrote one called 'When I Kissed the Teacher' Yes really. And worse.... I inserted lips whenever I wrote 'kissed'. No doubt it caused great amusement in the staff room.....and deservedly so.

Anyway it was a very pleasant trip down memory lane and has resulted in me listening to ABBA now as I write and I'm not ashamed to say the roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry.....