Last weekend

Because of a combination of holidays the previous weekend was an extended mini-holiday of five days: Thursday 11 February was the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Friday is always a day off, Saturday was the anniversary of the Holy Prophet’s passing and Imam Hassan’s martyrdom and Monday was the anniversary of Imam Reza’s martyrdom. Technically Sunday was a working day, but schools were off and many people went on mini-breaks to the Caspian littoral and to other cities, and many visited Mashhad, where Imam Reza is buried.

On the Friday we visited my brother-in-law’s in-laws (NOT a typing mistake), who had paid us a New Year visit last spring and which we had not got round to paying back. They live in a village bear Qazvin, down from the Alamut Castle in the famous Valley of the Assasins. After a sumptuous lunch (chicken in red sauce and rice with barberries (zereshk polow), yellow lentils stew with fried aubergines (khoresh gheimeh)) we went for a walk round the land to the south of the village. Apparently what now is arable land was a cemetery about tow centuries ago. Some gravestones were visible here and there: a man’s gravestone engraved with his name and a string of prayer beads; a woman’s bearing the engraving of a comb.