Remembrance

Remembrance Day always brings out a sense of loss and of thankfulness for the sacrifice made on our behalf by so many in so many wars. It seems the human psyche is just incapable of learning from it all, we constantly find new excuses to be at each other's throats or at least our politicians do.

Peace is a relative thing, and it depends on being prepared to stand up for what you believe in and for what you believe to be right. Wras erupt when people are persuaded by their leaders, by media bias and by propaganda, that they are threatened by some other group. Sadly, nothing has changed in the thousands of years of human "civilisation" to change that.

As I recalled the sacrifice of so many lives yesterday, I also said a prayer for those who survived. They too were marked by their experiences and we should remember that.

Five to go ...

Only another five weeks and I'll be sat on the flight home for a short break. I must say, pleasant as the people are here, I miss having my own things around me and being able to set my own task ist daily.

And I miss Madam Paddy Cat.

Winter chills

This evening huge clouds appeared over the mountains here and then covered them. By the time we had fought our usual battle - or our driver had - through the traffic, it was evident that the mountains have a new layer of snow and the city has had a dump of rain. The wind is presently from the north east and is bringing the chill of the snow down to us.

The mountains look fabulous, the snow pristine and the stark rock strata stand out here and there. Lower down, the cooler air and the recent rain has brought the grass and shrubs to a late greeness, but the cooler air has trapped the smog. I guess you win some and you lose others. If I get a chance and a clear shot, I'll try for a picture of the new snow, but for now, we'll have to figure out how to deal with burning the scenes for our course if its snowing ...

Tomorrow is "Friday on Wednesday" and we can at least look forward to the weekend. It was suggested we go to the mountains earlier today for an outing on Thursday. Weather forecasts suggest it might not be an option!

Family enlargement ....

At the centre we are working in, there is a small collection of "feral" dogs. It is not customary for the Iranians to keep pets so we also have a collection of feral cats. Most of them seem to do quite well food-wise, but are very wary of people. The dog in the picture has recently welped, delivering eight puppies of her own and managing to keep another five from somewhere else as well. Between the feral cats and the feral dogs we hav to take care that none have taken up residence in any of our fire scenes when we fire them up.

The picture shows "mum" with a large part of her brood. Our students and the staff here regularly feed them on left-overs from their own meals and even ensure they have adequate water. It is, we are told, illegal to keep a dog or cat as a pet here since the revolution which probably explains the number of feral cats around our apartment block and the equally large number of dogs around the centre which is on the southernmost edge of Tehran and bordered by farmland.

Over the hump ...

We "celebrated" passing the midpoint in our stay here in Tehran yesterday. I meant to post something then about it, but, frankly, the day passed in a blur of work with our new course starting and today has been busy too. We have a new group of students and its tricky getting to know them, getting the characters identified and defining where the boundaries are.

But, starting yesterday we are counting down towards our return home for Christmas and a bit of our own homes. It will be a relief to be able to deal with a number of things at home and to have my own things around me for a while. Even just to be able to walk to town and the shops and be able to speak to the shop assistant/keepr without the need of an interpreter. As I have several times stated, the Iranians are friendly, hospitable people. Their culture is an ancient one, though their religion is younger than mine, it is based on Gnosticism and much of their Holy Book is taken from Gnostic texts rejected by the Councils of Nicea and Trent in the 300's. For the record, it is the year 1388 (1423 in Sunni calendars) here and Islam is roughly where the Catholic Church was in the equivalent period in the Christian calendar.

OK, so I'm rambling. Its been a long day. 'Nuff said.

Palace views

The last Shah's palace stands lower down the hill than the Green Palace and is known as the Whiet Palace. This huge Parthian Archers stands at the entrance to the building which is on a more monumental scale than the older Green Palace. The entrance hall is vast, designed to impress, and occupies the central volume of the building. The Waiting Room is equally monumental and occupies one side of the front facade. The photograph shows about two thirds of the room and its furnishings which are, of course, French, 18th Century and lavish. Adjoining this is a small formal dining room for twenty people and next to that, toward the rear of the "public" half of the building, is the Shah's Office. This, again, is on a generous scale, but not as generous as some I have seen.And that concludes the Ground Floor for the moment!

A bit of history

Today we visited the former Shah's Palace in North Tehran. It stands in extensive grounds and is, in fact six or seven "palaces". It is now home to several museums all open to the public on payment of a small fee. From the entrance gate it is quite a steep climb up the roads to the Green Palace, the facade of which is shown in the first picture here. It is called the Green Palace as the stone used to build it in 1922 for Reza Shah (the last Shah's father) has a greenish tinge.
Inside is something else, the main reception hall is entirely covered in small mirror tiles and silver. The effect is amazing a can be seen from the picture here. The "palace" is quite small but is decorated in a lavish style. The rooms are grandly proportioned and the decorations include silk wall coverings, damask of course, original oil paintings from France and the UK of 18th and 19th Century vintage - in the "small" dining room I think I saw two Constables on the walls (see the picture) - and the furniture is French Empire period with some 18th Century as well. The Shah's bedroom is, like the reception room, decorated with silver and the mirror tiles. Hell to sleep in I should think.