ABBA

This is my eldest daughter's Abba collection. She was obsessed with them from the age of about 8 and there's just about everything here, as far as I can see, including Swedish and Spanish versions of some of the albums. By the time she left home at 18 she was embarrassed about it and disowned it, telling us we could sell them if we wanted (keeping the money for her, of course) but we couldn't get rid of them. Even during the popularity of Mamma Mia every dealer I contacted responded with pity or disdain, so they're still here in a box in a wardrobe. At the age of about 15 she moved on to musicals, especially Chess and Elaine Paige, and there's another small box full of albums, singles and related memorabilia for that. She saw the show dozens of times and got to know some of the cast who were very nice to her and looked after her until her dad and I turned up at the stage door to collect her when she used to bugger off nip up to London without telling us and then phone for a lift home from the theatre. She has since acknowledged that this was slightly odd behaviour for a teenage girl in the late '80s (or was it? Were any of you young blippers now in your early 40s similarly smitten?)

Anyway, it's a blip for a rainy day.