Ionia Guest House

Luxury accommodation in the Aegean countryside

Author: Jason (Page 7 of 7)

Container day

16 July, 2014 /

You know you’re really going when three men turn up to put everything you own into boxes or bubble-wrap, and then a huge truck parks outside your house. The guys from Robinsons were extremely professional, though, and packed every last plate and glass a lot better and a lot faster than we could have.

Boxes in the spare bedroom

Boxes in the spare bedroom

We had been told that our stuff would just about fit into a 20-foot (6.1 metres) container but we didn’t realize how close it would be. It’s lucky that we took so many loads to the recycling centre, as in the end we had to leave out an exercise bike, some flower pots, and an old office chair. The container was that full. Still, at least this means there’s no room for anything to slide around during transit!

Loading the container

Loading the container

So now it’s all gone and we are (briefly) living in a very empty and echoing house. Just some cleaning up to do today, and then we’re ready to fly on Friday.

If the ships sinks, this is the last we will see of it...

If the ship sinks, this is the last we will see of our belongings…

Straw bale fire testing

12 July, 2014 /

A few posts ago, we saw that straw bale construction holds up well to earthquakes. What about fire?

Turkey is dry enough in summer that you can get fires in the pine forests up in the hills, so you never know. And a lot of people’s first reaction to the idea of a straw bale wall is that it would surely be a bit flammable. Are we in danger of losing our hotel bungalows to a fire that comes sweeping down from the mountains?

Loose straw obviously burns very easily, and so cleaning up on the job site is important. Straw in a bale doesn’t burn as well as you would think, because it’s hard to get oxygen in there. And once you get 40mm of clay plaster on them, straw bale walls turn out to be surprisingly fire-resistant.

Here are a couple of videos. The first one is from Australia and shows a really dramatic simulated bushfire with temperatures of over 1000 °C pitted against a pre-fab straw bale wall. Temperatures on the other side of the wall stay at a comfortable 35 °C. The second video shows more of a backyard test but it gives a good impression of how the thick coating of plaster helps stop the bale from burning.

A farewell to Hampshire

8 July, 2014 /

Time flies.  There’s now less than a week to go before the removal company comes to take all our worldly goods away. So we’re frantically preparing by making an inventory for the insurance: how much does it cost to replace an ageing CD collection or a drawer full of mismatched socks? We’re recycling junk from the attic, based on the theory that a box you haven’t opened in seven years probably doesn’t have anything in it that you really needed.  And working our way down that long, tedious to-do list that all movers have to deal with: banks, phone, internet, gas, electricity, driving licence, etc.

We found out today that our shipping container will be travelling on the 366-metre-long Hamburg Express, direct from Southampton to ?zmir.  Here’s hoping our box doesn’t fall off the side.

The ship that will take our furniture to Turkey.

The ship that will take our furniture to Turkey (credit to Herbert Sommer and MarineTraffic).

Before we go, we want to thank all of our friends, neighbours, and colleagues for the warm send-offs we’ve been given. You have all been incredibly thoughtful. We’re determined to get out to Turkey and to start this new chapter in our lives, but that doesn’t mean we won’t miss you.

And some days it seems as though even the British weather is trying to convince us to stay. I took this shot of a double rainbow from our back garden a few days ago. If Southampton always looked like this after rain, we might have had a tougher decision on our hands.

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Double rainbow from our garden in Southampton.

Why Turkey?

18 June, 2014 /

Right now we’re still in the UK, but our plans for the big move are firming up. Sirem has left her job and I am in the last few weeks of mine. All our furniture will be stuffed into a shipping container and sent by sea on the 15th of July. We should be completing the house sale on the 18th of July, and will fly out to Turkey on the same day. The cats will be going ahead of us, travelling overland across Europe with the help of the nice people at Paws Kennels and Cattery.

Once we’re out there, and once we get our internet connection sorted out, the blog will get a lot more practical. We’ve got some immediate jobs to do like modernizing the bathroom in the old farmhouse, digging drainage ditches up in the orchard, and harvesting our first batch of figs. All that should mean lots of progress photos, of course.

In the meantime, some friends have asked why we’ve chosen southwest Turkey for our big plan. I think the easiest way to answer that is with some photos from previous visits.

Restaurant in Kirazl?, about 20km from our place

Köy Sofras? restaurant in Kirazl?, about 20km from our place

Valley in the hills nearby

Valley in the hills nearby

Gület (yacht) moored in beautiful Aegean waters

Gület (yacht) moored in beautiful Aegean waters

View from a hilltop looking out towards the Greek islands

View from a hilltop looking out towards the Greek islands

Geothermal power

9 June, 2014 /

H?d?rbeyli sits on top of a big source of geothermal energy. There are several geothermal power stations in the area, taking advantage of hot-water aquifers deep below the surface. And in some places the steam comes right up through the ground.

About 1.5km from our place, as you drive up into the hills, there’s a lake.  Or maybe I should call it a reservoir, really: it was formed by damming a stream that comes down from the mountains. It makes a good place for picnic, anyway.

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Lake in the hills behind us

Beyond the lake you can find several hot springs on the side of the road, or even just places where hot steam seeps up through mud or sand. It’s not quite as spectacular as Rotorua or Yellowstone, but still pretty amazing.

Hot springs: the water in there is close to boiling

Hot springs: the water in there is close to boiling

Steam coming up through the ground

Steam coming up through soft, sandy ground

We don’t know whether we’ll be able to use any of this geothermal power ourselves, but there’s talk in the village that the hot water runoff from a new power station will be available for local heating. It would be fantastic to have our winter heating needs taken care of by the rocks under our feet, but we’ll have to wait and see.

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