Digging For Happy is about my estrangement from my father and one of my saddest songs and while most people have heard me singing the slow version it does exist in a faster more angry version which Kit had a go at before we set off. His reference at the end of the video to a Polish guy refers to an abusive homophobic post on our video in Gdansk on Youtube that I've since deleted. Some idiot thinks we are a gay couple and that is a reason to abuse us. I hate prejudice in all its forms but to abuse love whatever its form has to be the narrowest thought of all.
The road to Udine was something of a dreary slog and began in a dull drizzle but after we crossed the border into Italy the sun returned and the day gradually became warmer. We stopped along the road this time for an ice cream rather than the usual chocolate and stumbled across the largest collection of international car stickers I've ever seen. This meant we could buy car stickers for most of the countries we have visited so far and add them to the guitar case, which now looks spectacularly beautiful.
It may have been a beautiful day but it was the second in a row with something of a negative vibe to it. I had originally fancied going to Verona but we changed today's destination to Udine at the suggestion of a musician contact of mine. He told a DJ contact of his about our trip and we were invited to Udine to sing our song for Italy live on local radio. All through this trip we have expected a phone call from Italy to make arrangements but none arrived and the longer this situation has gone on the more obvious it has been that no call is going to arrive. I hate broken promises but I especially hate people who break promises to my children. So we arrived in Udine not particularly wanting to be here and wondering if we would have had a better time in Verona.Hotels in Udine were expensive and I went for the cheapest option which was a Holiday Inn situated on the edge of the city. The accommodation was what you would expect for an international brand but a welcome change after the last two and we had a lovely view of the distant alps.
Once in our room Kit realised he no longer had the battery charger for his camera. This means when the camera runs out of charge we will no longer be able to make any videos. We dumped our luggage and drove into Udine to look for a battery charger. I parked the car on the edge of town. I'd expected difficulty parking but it was easy and cheap.
I really have no idea why we wasted time looking for a battery charger but we did. It was a stupid, hopeless waste of time and the day became hot and sweaty as we wandered around aimlessly. We were given a few suggestions of places to go but there was never the slightest possibility that any electrical hardware store or photgraphy specialist in Udine was going to stock a battery charger for a camera bought in England. Gradually this realisation dawned on us and we gave up. At the very point of giving up we were standing outside a pizza bar and had the most delicious and inexpensive lunch. This revived my brain power and we headed back to the hotel next to which was located a hypermarket where we bought a new camera. Some might view this as a further waste of time but without Kit's camera we would have to stop making videos and neither of wanted to.When we finally headed back into Udine to have a proper look around evening was approaching and because we had expected to meet people we had nothing planned. We again walked around in a fairly aimless manner but this time we were much more relaxed and began to enjoy Udine. I've never been to an Italian city I didn't like and Udine was lovely with a relaxed array of piazzas, attractive buildings and statues.
It was a lovely warm evening although every Italian was wearing a jacket or coat and Kit and I were the exceptions in our t-shirts. We hadn't eaten much today but had worked up quite an appetite and inevitabley our thought turned to food. We had a good look around Piazza San Giacomo which has an array of bars and cafes but to be perfectly frank everything was horrendously expensive. I have a strong aversion to paying silly money for food and have never eaten anything in an Italian restaurant that I couldn't cook as well myself so began to suggest we head back to the hypermarket and eat at our hotel although we both felt we deserved a treat after having more or less wasted the day. On our way back to the car we passed a decent looking restaurant and decided to take a chance. It was a disappointment. As we considered the menu the waiter hassled us in an effort to make us choose the most expensive items on the menu but we in the end, much to his disappointment, we decided on what we considered were mid-price options. We both started with poor insipid soups and plumped for pasta second courses. I had a really poor seafood pasta that contained pickled rather than fresh seafood and was so obviously a pale imitation of the dish I had in the Italian restaurant in Poland for half the price. Kit decided to have one of Italy's signature dishes in Italy and went for his second Carbonara of the trip resulting in a similar experience to mine.
We headed back to the hotel after a disappointing day and opted for an early night. Tomorrow is the second longest drive of the trip. We decided not to sing a song for the city who didn't bother to call us back and instead opted to sing our song for Italy on the road tomorrow.
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