Karen Phillips

Author – Photographer – Traveller

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Category Archives: Living in Turkey

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

A comedy of manners

A translator I know was educated at Oxford; he spent a few years there, immersed in the English language and the culture. On his return to Turkey, by lunchtime of his first day his mother rounded on him and demanded to know why he kept…

A comedy of manners

Village People

Remember that old sketch “I know my place” from The Frost Report, the one were John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett satirise the class system? It’s old but it still works, just change the costumes and give John Cleese an estuary accent so he…

Village People

Selcuk Market September – food prices and what’s in season

Everything was very chilled in Selcuk market today, the tourist hordes are thinning and a cool northerly breeze was blowing between the aisles, flapping the tarpaulins of the stalls and keeping the bustling abla’s pleasantly fresh and in a good humour. Everyone was all smiles…

Selcuk Market September – food prices and what’s in season

Storm warning

11th October 2011. Here is a quick update for those of you finding this post through a “storms in Turkey” search on Google. We’ve had torrential rain here on the Aegean coast for the last three days. The worst flooding has been inland in Milas…

Storm warning

The Culture of Trade

There is a story we tell to new arrivals to Turkey; so settle down quietly, drink your tea and listen well gentle traveller because it holds the key to your time in this strange land. When you come to Turkey you may wish to buy…

The Culture of Trade

Beware of the garden

“Be careful !” yelled Nick, which made me jump and impale myself on the aloe vera. I had been cautiously insinuating my sturdy self to the back of the flower border by the pool to break up the sun baked soil with my little trowel.…

Beware of the garden

Sezai – armed and dangerous

Sezai appears on these pages in words and pictures. His photo is on the “about us” page posing next to Phil whilst we worked on the house here and he was one of the first people I wrote about on this blog when I started…

Sezai – armed and dangerous

Spider bites and street kitchens

I’m feeling a bit rubbish this week due to some unfortunate spider bites in tender places and so my creative urge is a bit limp or maybe just itchy, either way it’s not at it’s best. You do have to be of relatively sound mind…

Spider bites and street kitchens

First Fruits of Autumn

It’s all going mad in the valley with the first fruits of autumn. Everything is coming into season at the same time and down in the fertile flatlands the vines are heavy with grapes and the tomato plants on the end of each row are…

First Fruits of Autumn

Village to Village

Yesterday morning an invisible crescent moon rose somewhere in the east, hidden in the bright light of a rising August sun and Turkey shrugged its shoulders and decided enough was enough and Ramazan was done, let the celebrations begin. In theory the crescent moon should…

Village to Village

Pear and Frangipane Tart for Seker Bayram

With Seker Bayram just around the corner I’m practising sweet stuff. Whilst I’ll make salted peanut caramel and fudge for the children I’ll make grape cake and this frangipane pear tart for the adults. The grape cake recipe (Italian Grape Cake) remains one of the…

Pear and Frangipane Tart for Seker Bayram

The busy nights of Ramazan

Ramazan is rushing to an end, Şeker Bayram is only a few days away and here in Kirazli the short nights are busy as everyone hurries to get their homes ready for the inevitable influx of family visitors whilst enduring the ongoing strain of keeping…

The busy nights of Ramazan

Turkey, it’s economy and the lira’s graceful slide

Nick rang a friend in the UK yesterday morning on a financial matter. His friend was doing a fine impression of Chicken Little, running around the office, waving his blackberry in the air and screaming “The sky is falling!” or rather “The markets are falling!”…

Turkey, it’s economy and the lira’s graceful slide

Meteorite Nights

Mid summer is meteor time. I saw my first meteorite of the season the other night as I stood ankle deep in the blood warm pool looking up for the regular satellites that sweep across the evening sky into the north. It was a quick…

Meteorite Nights

Turkey is to Europe what Mexico is to North America

Does familiarity breed contempt? Does distance denote glamour? If you’re British and you say you’re going on holiday to Turkey you won’t get many brownie points in the exotic travel stakes, but if you’re North American you’ll go straight to the top of the wannabe…

Turkey is to Europe what Mexico is to North America

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