Rain and thunderstorms were predicted for my ABBA Pool Party in the height of summer in Oz, but luckily we caught a break and it was warmly humid with a mild breeze. 21 degrees, nice!
In order of Arrival, there was me, Louise, Yol, George and David. We were going to get takeaway and eat it by the pool, but cos we’d been brought up in the 60s/70s to “never swim within an hour of eating” (years later disproven) we decided to follow that maxim – the theory back then was you’d get stomach cramps and DIE/drown! We’re still too terrified to go for a dip after having thought about eating even a crumb, so we put all our food in the fridge and headed off to the pool.
Got there, whipped our covid masks off and jumped in.
Had a splash around and after a while we lined up along the side of the deep end for a photo, with the ABBA towel on the edge and ABBA dolls sunbaking on it. All ready for our closeups, when suddenly WHOOSH!! EMMERGENCY!! A gust of wind and the ABBA dolls and towel were blown into the deep end of the pool and needed rescuing!
“Sue lies by the pool” had become “Sue in the pool!”
Worse, the chlorine had made all the colours in the doll clothes and ABBA towel run, threatening to stain the dolls! All irreplaceable! Luckily the dolls all knew how to swim and floated, so I leapt out of the pool and ran back upstairs to my flat, with Louise’s wise words ringing in my ears: “Use the Colour Catchers!!”
I used nearly a whole pack of Colour Catchers in the washing machine and they all came out bright red after the wash!!
I gave the ABBA dolls and their clothes a thorough cold rinse. Then back to my guests!!
We all rinsed off and had dinner outside on the balcony – George had thoughtfully bought us all Newtown’s famous Clem’s chicken and tabbouleh, and we finished off with Connoisseur chocolate icecreams in blood orange and hazelnut flavours. Divine!
By now, it was about 8pm, so it was time to finish up, as I’d just invited everyone for only a casual swim and dinner get together.
But David started rummaging around on this phone and lo and behold found several rare ABBA clips he just had to share. “Fire up the chromecast!” he ordered.
I turned on the telly, then remembered I had three 1-hour BBC specials my fabulous ex had sent me recently – The Joy of ABBA, ABBA at the BBC and Agnetha: ABBA and After. Well, there was no way anyone was leaving before all three had been fully watched and discussed at length! (We found it shocking that’s LOTS of rare Aussie footage was featured in all the UK specials and we NEVER get to see that footage here! It’s because the BBC has more $$$ for sorting out copyright issues.)
Eventually, after mentioning Bjorn’s latest podcast, our admiration for Bobby’s Brother’s analysis of ABBA songs on Youtube, and the recent rising view count of my Someone Else’s Story vid, it was time to say goodbyes: “Take a pic of the ABBA dolls drying on the clothes stand!” So I did. And here it is!
Cotton Ward 