Our first fine in Poland

Today was a very eventful day. We arrived in Poland five days ago and in the morning I decided to try and tidy up the garden. Our inconsiderate builders had left a mess everywhere, several large piles of building rubber, old paint pots, polystyrene, wire, timber, broken tiles and lots of plastic bags. Now the bags were scattered all around the garden often close to trees. I knew what to expect but I still can’t believe what I was clearing up. I paid those men to build our house and now I'm walking around the garden with a large bag of their excrement.

When first arriving at the house we were told by the project manager not to use the bath or toilet because the sewerage pipe from our village wasn’t connected to the next village (this was meant to be done in December 2010) If we desperately needed to use the toilet there was a fifteen-minute drive with our legs cross to the mother in-laws house.

So it was a bit of a shock when two official looking men with red faces and ill fitted uniforms came onto our land telling us that we had the pay a penalty for using the toilet. The wife translated and told me that it could cost us anything from 50zl to 500zl. So you can only imaging how I felt after the morning’s events. Izabela explained to the two officers that we hadn’t been using the toilet, but they said they could see our BUILDERS or ourselves had and there well be a penalty of 50zl to pay. Luckily the fine was the minimum amount, if it was more I would have posted the bags id collected in the morning back to the builders.

“You have to laugh at life and what to throws at you”