Category Archives: Living in Turkey

Posts about life in Kirazli Village in Aegean Turkey and scenes from village life.

What is Turkey like in winter – Part Two

All change for the season……. The villagers change their houses radically for winter, some rooms are abandoned totally as furniture is heaved around (by the women), sobas are reassembled from their component parts which have been stored in the goat shed all summer (by the…

What is Turkey like in winter – Part Two

What’s Turkey like in winter – part one

Is it cold in Turkey in winter? The short answer is yes. There is a longer answer, so please read on. Most people are shocked by their first winter in Turkey, they have a moved to a country they probably knew in summer when it…

What’s Turkey like in winter – part one

2012 – we gained so much and lost one special someone

When I look back at 2012 I can’t believe we did so much. The years pass ever faster but they are no less full and I have to edit and cut to get the highlights in when I look through my image library. All the…

2012 – we gained so much and lost one special someone

Lunchtime at the Lake – taking a break to enjoy the scenery

After a morning working on the House Elements project we were hot, grubby (as usual) and our minds swarmed with figures, measurements, levels and angles as we worked on the complicated three dimensional plan of the project. It was time for a break, so we…

Lunchtime at the Lake – taking a break to enjoy the scenery

A Great Little Train Trip – discovering Aydin

I like trains. Trains are cool! They are particularly cool when they are staffed by people who smile at you, when they offer you warm, fresh, sesame simits at 50 kurus each, when the trains themselves are clean and new and the price of a…

A Great Little Train Trip – discovering Aydin

Where does it all go wrong? Avoidable mistakes when starting a business abroad

I grew up on the Costa Del Sol and by the time I was sixteen I had seen pretty much every expat business mistake under the sun; I’d seen the alcoholics who bought bars, the wishful thinkers who thought Irish bacon was a unique selling…

Where does it all go wrong? Avoidable mistakes when starting a business abroad

Playing Away – Diving Adabanko Reef and Barbarossa Reef Kusadasi

Ever since I started diving I have been under the watchful gaze of my instructors at Active Blue (www.activeblue.com), they’ve trained me, guided me, mentored me and managed my baby flippering. I think they’ve done a good job, I certainly feel happy down there and…

Playing Away – Diving Adabanko Reef and Barbarossa Reef Kusadasi

That was the season that was – we’re all on wind down in October

“How was the season for you?” I ask Bora, a friend in Kusadasi. He smiles widely, “For me it was good.” He says, “For me it was a very nice season.” “You’re the first person apart from me I’ve heard say that!” I tell him,…

That was the season that was – we’re all on wind down in October

Scuba Diving – Part Two – Feel the fear and do it anyway

I grope for my pressure gauge on its long hose on my left hand side. The needle hovers above empty and I tap it, the skin of my fingers whitish green and wrinkled in the washed out underwater light. It doesn’t move. Reading just above…

Scuba Diving – Part Two – Feel the fear and do it anyway

Scuba Diving – Part One – Old Bitch, New Tricks

I’m kneeling in the squishy sand at the bottom of the Aegean Sea, three metres above my head the pale grey surface is lit with slanting sunlight, a small Bream is swimming bossily through the fat bursting bubbles in front of my mask and I’m…

Scuba Diving – Part One – Old Bitch, New Tricks

The Old Koy Laws – village guards, stinky fruit and be careful where you put that graveyard.

On 3rd May 2012 the Turkish parliament debated and then passed an amendment to the land buying laws here in Turkey. The new amendment isn’t in effect yet, it still needs to be signed and then published in the official gazette but I received an…

The Old Koy Laws – village guards, stinky fruit and be careful where you put that graveyard.

A new kitchen for the studio

My husband had this thing about designing houses, he wanted them to have “value added” and be, as far as possible, “future proof”; in other words whatever we designed had to be more than ordinary and preferably capable of generating income and it had to…

A new kitchen for the studio

Optimum Outlet Mall, Gaziemir – worth it for the macaroons

One thing Izmir is not short of these days is shopping centres. From the open air Forum Bornova to the huge Agora down on the bay and the sprawling malls of Karsiyaka. They are all teeming at weekends as families take to hobby shopping like…

Optimum Outlet Mall, Gaziemir – worth it for the macaroons

More campaigns than Napoleon – Phones and Internet in Turkey

The whole phone/internet/data package for your mobile can get a bit confusing here, not helped by the fact that the big communication companies have more special offer campaigns going than you can shake a stick at – when I last looked there were 19 different…

More campaigns than Napoleon – Phones and Internet in Turkey

The back roads of Turkey

I may have mentioned this is the worst winter I have ever known here, but one pleasant side effect of that is the scenery is even more spectacular and dramatic than usual. There is something so enticing about back roads, about the thin ribbons that…

The back roads of Turkey

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Karen Phillips

Author – Photographer – Traveller