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00:00I'm Patricia Wlodzinski, born and bred in Inverness, mother was Polish, mother was from
00:11Inverness, and I have a shock now called Aternum.
00:16I was born with congenital hip disorder, so that's kind of meant a lot of operations over
00:21the years, and I almost fell in hospital when I was just a year and a half.
00:26So I didn't get out until almost nearly starting school.
00:29I loved Inverness, actually, I was never one of the ones that wanted to leave it, but once
00:34I went to Poland in my thirties for the first time, I fell in love with it.
00:38I just had this kind of moment where I thought, gosh, I felt as if I'd come home, and it was
00:43really bizarre.
00:44When I opened my first shop, Zayazel, which was up in the Crown area, where the drawing
00:49room is now, in fact, with the intention of bringing crafts over, and I never really thought
00:56about starting it, the first visit.
00:58I think it was the second or third one, but my ex-husband said to me, oh, it's not going
01:04to be a business, what do you want to take crafts over for?
01:08And I said, because people in Inverness don't believe me when I tell them all the lovely
01:12stuff that they're making here, because they're made from wood, they're made from glass, they're
01:16made from pottery.
01:17It turned into a Polish restaurant, and then in 2004, the people started coming in.
01:22I helped over a thousand people find jobs and accommodation for them, and I said, why
01:26are you all coming here?
01:27And they said, because the council and the job centres tell us to come here, because
01:33they can't understand us.
01:34So I phoned the council and I said, can you give me any funding?
01:37No, no, no, you don't tick any boxes, but you're doing a great job, carry on.
01:41Basically, we're just needing support, so I was giving them free coffee and my usual.
01:57But for the first time, I just felt the power of something, and it was really nice welcoming
02:07them all and knowing that they were friends, sorry.
02:14It was nice welcoming them and knowing that they were enjoying the Highlands so much that
02:20they started telling all their family and friends, and that thousand people became ten
02:25thousand at one time in Inverness.
02:31Do you want a tissue?
02:32No, I'm fine.
02:33I've got one.
02:34It became ten thousand, and then it reduced a little bit when we left the EU, and a lot
02:43of them went back.
02:44But I even got a letter from Poland.
02:47I dressed as Aya Zell in the Highlands, and it got to me.
02:50But I get that buzz now from the tourists coming in Inverness, because a lot of them
02:55are Germans, and my uncle lives in Germany, so I always say things to them, like, where
03:02are you from in Germany?
03:03Oh, my uncle's here, and then we talk about that.
03:06One day, in fact, this guy came in, he says, I'm a judge, and I've got a case to do in
03:15Selar next week, actually, so I'm going there.
03:18But it was just really nice, you know.
03:21There's connections.
03:22Yeah.
03:23Human connections.
03:24Exactly, and I love talking to people.