Teresa Machado Perez

Teresa Machado Perez, originally from Spain, is the store manager of H&M, and tells me why she's proud to call Inverness her home.

"I was born in a small village in Spain which had 15,000 people.  Nearly 20 years ago, I moved to the UK and lived in Brighton, staying there for 5 years.  I then went travelling around the world and spent all my money!  I decided to come up to Inverness because my partner knew people here.  We knew that that would make it easier to set up home here.  We were thinking about only staying a year and then it turned into 5 years.

We've since bought a flat which meant that we were definitely going to stay here for much longer.  Just now, we're quite happy here.  It took us a while to make friends here but now that we have really close friends, we're definitely going to stay for a long time.  I guess when you get older, it just takes a bit longer to make friends!  The scenery really makes me want to stay here but, to be honest, it's just the people in Inverness.  That's what makes us really want to stay here.  My partner's not from here either so together we've found a brand new place that's home to us both.

Working in Inverness compared to other places is definitely a lot quieter.  Because I work in the Eastgate Centre, it's always a lot more happening there.  Compared to Spain, apart from the weather of course, it's just a different way of life here.  Much more relaxed.  I miss my family but I will go and visit them quite a lot.  That's always what you miss the most, the people in different places.  I definitely see Inverness as my home.  When I go back to Spain, I say I'm going on my holidays.  I never say I'm going back home.  When I'm there for a bit of time, I always say that I'm ready to go back home!

Here, at Zizzi, is such a lovely spot.  I always wondered why the space wasn't being used for so long because it's beautiful here.  It's nice to be able to sit and watch the chefs at work and look at the river.  I didn't realise it would be so big inside.  There's lots of tables and the kitchen look very good.  You can even watch the pizzas being cooked in the big fire ovens."