Voyage

I made a French toast with mushrooms for breakfast and then we were on a train at 10:20 towards London. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a panic at the station thinking I’d left the hob on.  We ended up on a twenty minute round trip back to check. It did mean that when we re-boarded the train at Raynes Park we were on the same train as E so we had company on the journey to Pudding Mill Lane.  The train was quite busy and there was a lady on the training hogging seven seats - one to sit on and six with her bags on them. She refused to let anybody move them to sit down. I think PY decided to stand to avoid the argument. I hope she gets the help it seems she needs.

We’d grabbed a coffee and pastry at Stratford and I finished eating them waiting for Mark and Rob outside Pudding Mill Lane station. When they arrived we had a quick look in the merchandise shop before heading into ABBA Arena. Unlike when PY and I went before, we are on the dance floor area rather than seats. I got a wine (it was, this point just after 12:30) and we went and occupied some space ahead of the concert.

The show was, of course, exactly the same as last time but the view was different. The dance area was a bit more crowded than we would have liked. I am not sure there was that much room to move around. We had a very tall man in front of us who moved from side to side a lot making it harder to get a consistent view (when he swayed left, we swayed right) and a somewhat exuberant dancer next to me who was unafraid of dancing into me in her wilder moments. Bt they didn’t spoil it.

I am not sure that I have a lot else to say about it that I didn’t comment on last time. With a straight on view, the effect of the ABBAtars is even more impressive when watching them interact but some of the magic of the lighting is missed as the lights are above you (whereas from the seats they are more obviously in front of you). I did find it interesting to be in a crowd swaying, waving hands and clapping at a band who couldn’t hear or see any of it (although there is also a real band playing alongside the ABBAtars who, I assume, appreciate the cheering.  Still very enjoyable even if the performance was identical. I did get some words onto Threads about it:

"Almost 14 months on from seeing the ABBAtars at @abbavoyage, I was back with a different group of friends, to dance to Summer Night City, Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight), Voulez-Vous and Dancing Queen. Last time I thought the ABBAtars were remarkably convincing to the human eye and, from the standing (dancing) area, nothing's changed: in fact they may be even more realistic. The ABBA arena is holding up well one year later. The Visitors, remains one of my favourite songs."

Afterwards, with M, R and E to Jim and Tonic at The Print House. It’s the same pub we ate at last time we saw the Abba show but it appears to have had a gin distillery added.  We stuck to wine.  After a couple of hours, and some fantastic food, we headed off towards town, stopping for more drinks at the BFI on the Southbank. I stopped drinking before we left East London and moved to soft drinks. It’s very unlike me but I knew that was what I need to do. Hopefully, I will be thankful of the decision tomorrow.

PY (and M) picked up a magic at M&S on the way home. Not the biggest quantity of food we have ever had but more than enough to give us something to eat when we got home without needing to cook. As always, good value. PY and I both started to doze by 10:45pm and called it a night.