I thought we’d start watching “The Great British Sewing Bee” tonight, but the husband said “What’s the point because we’re not going to see the whole series together?” That felt cutting.

So I looked on the BBC iPlayer app for something and he noticed a program about ABBA – our favourite group.

I added it to my list for later, but he wanted to watch it right away.

I watched about fifteen minutes of it. As with any program about music, there were snatches from various songs. There were a few lines from “Ring Ring”, one of my favourite ABBA songs – it’s actually from before the time when they were ABBA.

“I miss SingStar,” I said, remembering the nights when we’d play as a couple, or we’d have friends or family over and we’d play together. I sang a lot of ABBA, but “Ring Ring” was a favourite. He would notice that I was smiling through the whole number.

I loved to see him enjoying himself with passion – something so rare. I had never expected him to take to the game so well.

I couldn’t stay up to watch much of it. I needed to be in bed by ten and the documentary wouldn’t finish until eleven.

I went to bed feeling sad.

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As I lay there in bed, the music seeped into my consciousness, the pain of breakup in “The Winner Takes It All” and the hope of old friendship in “The Way Old Friends Do” infecting my soul with nostalgia.

I am glad of the small mercy that I’ve not heard “My Love, My Life”: that would cause the collapse of all composure and force the tears to the surface – but like an idiot, I ask Alexa to play it for me.

It is the song of a couple, who still love each other deeply, separating having spent the night talking and trying to find a way through – only to find that there is no way. The song aches with love and loss.

Cue the tears.

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What nights we had though!

I remember my fortieth birthday – he arranged a surprise party, and, like so many nights before and after, we played SingStar.

The first number was sung by me (it was my birthday, after all) and I sang the track that was number one the day I was born: “Waterloo”!

My husband preferred other songs. His favourite was “It’s a sin” by the Petshop Boys (he related to the lyrics). He always preferred emotional songs, as he would say. His other favourite was Bette Midler’s “The Rose”, although he preferred the Westlife version. I prefer Bette’s because it feels more raw to me. I learnt to play it on the piano for him.

We could spend all night singing. Neither of us have any great talent in that direction, but I do believe in “singing like nobody is listening”, which is just as well because I am sure that anybody who listened would not be impressed with my voice. He is a better singer.

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Sony allowed SingStar to die after Playstation 4 came out. The old PlayStation 3 discs wouldn’t work on the new PlayStation, so we couldn’t play the ABBA tracks that we loved so much. Then the SingStore (where you could download extra tracks) was shutdown.

Those musical evenings are lost in our past.

I miss those happy, happy times.