One of many people who have tea-ed me.

6.

I took a stroll through Kashan once I had arrived. It was dark already but the long streets were lit by the neon glow of the shop signs. A woman in the distance, wearing a ghostly, black chador, seemed to glide round the corner. I, myself, drew some curious stares.

I glanced into a large shop window and caught the eye of a large man who immediately beckoned me in for tea. The room was clad in wood panelling from floor to ceiling and a group of around eight men were seated in a circle facing an authoritative, old man who wore a trilby. As it turned out, this aged fellow was an estate agent and this was his office. I sat down and the guy who invited me in got straight onto his phone, telling his pal to come down as there was a guy from Scotland in their midst.

His friend, Mansor, arrived soon after and saved my handshake until last: “welcome in Iran”. We talked for a while and he translated some of what his mates were guffawing about and as well as the countless glasses of tea, I was brought local bean and sour yoghurt soup from the shop around the corner.

My new acquaintance and I departed together, as he’d offered me a lift back to my guesthouse. But first he took me to meet his wife and her aunties and cousins. He knocked and opened the door onto a large partition, by way of a sheet, which stops the women being caught off guard by a male visitor such as myself. It was very different to the private gatherings in Tehran.

We stepped into the living room, the floor of which was a gargantuan Persian rug. His wife and her relatives, some elderly, were sat on a cushion on the ground, fully covered by their chador. My initial nervousness at feeling intrusive was waylaid by their beaming smiles. I could feel Nana’s gaze, too, when I was watching the television.

Tea, oranges, cucumber and cakes were laid out in front of me and I made everyone chuckle by biting a huge chunk off the end of my cucumber, instead of slicing it horizontally like a civilised person.

Thus far in Iran, someone has always taken me under their wing. The only time today that I was really alone, then, was on the metro to the bus station. But does having someone’s cheek pressed up against your own really count as being alone?