What to write......................................................

After the past days here in Nairobi it has been very difficult to bring myself to log on and write about our day to day lives when there has been so much horror going on around.
Although not immediately affected by loss of family or friends it has definately had an impact on our lives; work collegues who have lost family members, aquaintances who have shops in the mall and the wondering if they and their staff have come through this unhurt; the guys in my favourite book shop up on the 2nd floor where I used to visit every Saturday; and the ongoing stories of sadness, bravery and selflessness that continue to come to our attention through the television, newspapers and social media.

And now I wonder how it will change our lives; will it change the way some of us view others in our community? I hope not. One of the best things about living in Kenya has always been the wonderful melting pot of nationalities, cultures and, yes, even religions - it is what makes living here exciting, learning something new and interesting about your friends and community every day.

I do of course worry about my Somalie friends and how it will affect them. Everytime we have a security incident, the police come down very heavily on the Somlaie community. I do understand why because Al Shabaab  take advantage of the community but the offenders are such a small percentage, the majority of people coming here to escape what is happening in Somalia, to try and lead peacful, safe lives. Even in Somalia they make life difficult for the population.
I mean, who the hell do they think they are?? How do they think they have the right to speak for God or Allah or what ever you want to call him? Any discussions I have had with Muslim friends about the teachings of Islam have never mentioned openfiring on innocent people especially women and children.

So now that I have vented my spleen, I can get on and bring you upto date with our goings on. Tarbu came home last Friday, very pleased to see me when I picked him up from the vet. 30 minutes out of the car and he had Sammy, the askari, and myself chasing him across the bush as he headed back to his girlfriend!! For his sins he was chained up for 4 days, and being taken for walks (great for my exercise regimen). Tonight he gets his 'last supper' and tomorrow morning he is back to the vet to get 'the chop'! No more babies for Tarbu.

Bernard and I spent several hours in the veggie garden and now have lots of new seedlings, including the courgettes, in and thriving. he is also working on some small rockeries on the driveway which needed lots of attention and are now looking much nicer although, the conifers, which I was trying to protect, got their 'skirts' cut off in the process. They look like they have had very bad haircuts, no perfect Christmas trees for us this year.

Our most exciting news comes from the kitchen window sill. After about 2 months we have 2 lemon tree seedlings grown from seed, the tumeric root is sprouting and the rhubarb pieces we stuck in are still alive, so we are ever hopeful, they are putting down roots.
        
In the kitchen - I have finally managed to get organised with my Christmas fruit mince and it has been brewing on the kitchen bench for about one week. The suet went in last night and tonight I will be bottling it ready to make lots of yummy mince tarts in a couple of months.
Next week - hopefully back to the old routine - dogs, food, cooking, gardening. Oh and of course our buffalo who, I am very glad to report is back in the garden despite the efforts of some to keep him out, he was waiting on the main road, at the front gate, to be let in when Jim arrived home the other evening.  

Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb.....................................

No, I am not just trying to fill in the gaps with Monty Python style mutterings! I am actually talking about those wonderfully dark pink stalks that make the best crumble or fool or are a perfect surprise when you get to the bottom of your creme brulee!

I have always loved rhubarb but unfortunately it has a short season, is always sold in such small bunches, and I have always heard it is not so easy to grow.

Well, Jim and I went away over the weekend and I was delighted to see, as we were driving up the Rift Valley escarpment, to see several road side stalls full of rhubarb. The drive up the escarpment is quite spectacular especially if you are on the bottom road right on the cliff edge (although I must admit as a passenger I often have my eyes closed because of all the mad truck drivers!). Not being in any hurry we stopped for a road side picnic with a view.

 

 

I have always found Toyota bonnets make perfect picnic tables!

 

It doesnot matter where you are the trinket sellers will always find you! I fed these 2 which stunned them for long enough for us to make an escape.

 

On the way back we stopped to stock up. I will admit I went a bit overboard buying 6 bunches that I could hardly get my arm around! As I was negotiating the price we looked down at several plastic bags of wet soil only to realise that they were the precious 'crowns' and they were for sale. Of course the whole lot went into the back of the truck and we spent the rest of the journey home discussing where they would be planted.
Most unusually, we did get on with the job as soon as we arrived home - me in the kitchen and Jim in the garden.

I had apple and rhubarb jam in mind when purchasing but finally decided on freezing half and bottling the rest.
I consulted several books before starting and found one that suggested cooking the rhubarb using Verjuice! Well, as you can see from the photos it helped keep the amazing pink colour. I have always though it such a disappointment that the pink fades to a greeny pink-brown.

My favourite pot with 3 bunches of rhubarb chopped into 2-3inch pieces, the remains of my precious Maggie Beer verjuice (about 400mls) and a hefty sprinkle of caster sugar when on a low flame until the stalk were soft but not sloppy.  

Sterilising jars the lazy way - boil the kettle and pour over the lids and fill the jars. Leave for about 5 minutes. The jars will be hot so use tongs to lift and empty the water out.

Fill the jars right to the top and seal with the hot lids.

A trick I learned from a Maggie Beer video. As soon as they are sealed tip the jars upside down and leave until cool. Especially if you are using recycled jars this action (for some reason I still have not worked out but I am sure my physics mad cousin will tell me) 'sucks in' the middle of the lid and forms a seal. Essential if you want to store your produce for several months (I first tried it with my bread and butter cucumbers back in March and they where perfect when opened a few weeks ago)

Pudding sized bags ready for the freezer

Not enough for a full jar so we tested it with plain yoghurt - YUM!

Not a great photo but as I was preparing the stalks I found 2 with a bud coming out the side. We have popped them into plastic pots and added them to our germination nursery onthe kitchen window sill to see what will happen.

 

We now have our pantry supplies and 4 crowns in the garden. After more reading, it turns out they are quite hardy plants as long as they get manure and water regularly. They last for about 4 years and then can be pulled up and divided as you would spring bulbs. All being well, we have rhubarb for life. Of which my younger brother will be very jealous - it is his really most favourite thing!!

 

Happy Eating!

 



The week leading up to Friday 13th!!

It has been an eventful week in our household, most of it being the type of things you would expect to happen on Black Friday!

Tarbu wandered off to sow his wild oats over the weekend, as he tends to do every three months or so. I have never been happy with the fact that he spends time away and usually send Bosco down to find him after a few days. The Tarbu that was brought home on Monday was a very sorry sight. He has been fighting, obviously no longer 'the top dog' in the neighbourhood, he had been given quite a beating by his son. My opinion of people who allow this to happen on their plots when they claim to be animal lovers is not going to be the focus here but surfice to say I have taken photos and will be going to KSPCA. After 3 days at home and a visit from our local vet (lots of gentian violet and an antibiotic injection) Jim decided to do his own vet work last night, as you can see in the photos. Well, he was at least putting some weight on his leg this morning (we have had to carry him everywhere up to now) but we decided to take him for a visit to the vet in Karen who has been looking after all our family animals for many years.
Sanjay's reaction was much as we expected - Tarbu is spending a few days in hospital and will have an operation to clean out all the infected wounds and get proper care to get him back on his feet.
Needless to say he will be having his manhood operated on as soon as he is well enough to handle the stronger anaesthetic. His wandering days are over, he has sired quite enough offspring for one dog!

Well, if one member of the family out of action was not enough, I am hobbling around on one foot! What should have been an exciting Tuesday - my first day of catering for the pilots at work, I managed to slip down the spiral staircase at the hangar and totally twisted my foot. Nothing broken but it is a very pretty colour and about twice the size of my left foot ! Today I can spread my toes out for the first time. Our friend Phil, next door, sent a spare walking crutch over but I am having to get used to walking with it.

Our poor old buffalo was darted and taken away by KWS on Wednesday. Contacted by someone on the adjoining plot the rangers had visited on Tuesday. Jim was home and had sat down with them over cups of tea and they went off happy that we were not bothered by our extra watch dog! We did not find out until late Wednesday night that they had visited again that day when both Jim and Bosco were out - I was home lying on the lounge, but I don't thing even our staff had any idea it was happening. Anyway, I did see him in the park yesterday as I drove through (he is one of the very few buffs that have not moved with the herd to new pastures). He is easily identified by his broken horns. I am sure he recognised the car. I was about 150 metres away and stopped to watch him. He was walking with some zebras and suddenly stopped and turned completely to face me and just stood there staring at the car. I wonder what was going through his head looking at the car which was probably the last thing he saw before he went to sleep with the dart. He took a few steps towards me and then turned and kept on his path.

The good news of the week (there had to be some!) is that Rita has identified the bush baby nest in the roof! She dragged me into our bedroom yesterday as soon as I got home and pointed up at the corner above the windows and there were three little heads looking down at us, so exciting as we can now plan when we are redoing the roof so we dont disturb them too much.
I did wonder aloud whether they like watching the humans when they are sleeping as we like to watch them?
No photos yet, Adele, but at least I know where to aim the camera now.
So far Friday 13th has been trouble free. I do have to get myself back down the work staircase safely and I cant see that much can go wrong at the concert and dinner that we are attending tonight but who knows....... 
Happy weekend to everyone.

Our purple dog after the visit from the local vet.

Bosco doing the initial clean up

Jim, the amateur vet



I have never had dainty feet but right now I look like I have some strange tropical disease in my right foot!

my friend Chris

I am sitting on our front terrace looking at the park and the strangest thought comes into my head – ‘I wonder what Chris would think if he was here’ (dont ask why I am not at work, it is a long story that I will tell tomorrow!)

For three short months, in Sierra Leone, Chris Manley was my best friend. We were both working for an NGO on our first missions and we just clicked. Nothing romantic, just instant good friends. We spent so much time together talking, talking, talking. I learned a lot about cars and logistics spending time in his office.

Walking home from the hospital we would buy 2 cigarettes each and save them for smoking on the veranda in the dark after everyone else had gone to bed. One night we pulled our mattresses onto the veranda – breaking all the security rules in the book – and slept outside for the night.

He told me there were only 3 books ever worth reading; they would give you everything you needed in life – The Little Prince, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and The Alchemist. I had not read any of them, but did as soon as I had access to a decent book shop and can see what he meant; although I am such a book/reading addict I have not stopped reading other material!

He gave magic foot massages after a long day in the field.

He was not that fussed about cooking, I don’t think. In fact, when our cook was on holiday for a week and we decided that we each would take a night, when Chris’s turn came around he announced that we were eating out!

We went to Freetown several times and would go straight to a restaurant by the sea and gorge ourselves on lobster. I remember staying a few days at a place up the coast that lots of UN and NGO people went to where we would spend hours on the beach and eating more lobster. He tried to teach me how to throw a Frisbee properly – I never did and still can’t, I am left handed! 

The really special time we spent together was when we went on our break to Mali. He had been thinking of going home overland, I can’t even remember what changed his mind. Everyone thought we were mad but no-one tried to stop us (even though we were in a country just coming out of civil war I can’t remember the security being that strict). We hitched a ride on a WFP helicopter from Freetown to Conakry in Guinea. After staying the night we hoped in a share taxi, managing to bag the front seat rather than squashing in the back, and went the length of country into Mali swapping over every so often to relieve our knees and sharing the risk of falling out the door!

We wanted to try and make it to Timbuktu but in the end we realised time was against us. We were not backpacking with no time limits. I think we had about 10 days all up.

Buses through the night, stopping at roadside stalls to drink instant coffee made with condensed milk – delicious. 

Sitting on the rooftop of our hotel spending hours looking at and listening to, the mosque in Djenne.

Staying in the brothel in Mopti, hilarious, all the girls tried to entice him into their rooms as we walked  through the corridors.

Walking in Dogon country, with more rooftop contemplations, truly amazing.

My memories are scattered and vague and there are no photographs to jog the memory. We did take a camera but it gave up the ghost after about 2 snaps. And Chris is no longer here to remind me, you see he died about 5 years ago.

We kept in touch after he left and caught up in London once I returned. I always had plans to visit him in Botswana when I was visiting SA for work but it never happened. I knew he was in Tanzania and one day I was sitting at home in Nairobi when I got a call ‘I am at Wilson for a few hours, get down here!” so of course I jumped in the car and we sat on the stairs at the Titan hangar and chatted and caught up as if all those years had just melted away. That was the last time I saw him.

I had an email from my friend Tamara asking if I knew Chris had been killed in a flying accident, I think I was back in Australia for a few months sometime in 2009 when I got her message. You see I did not know any of his family or friends in UK, only the 4 of us that had worked together for 3 months, I am not even sure how Tamara found out.

I drive past the Titan hangar everyday as I come to work and I look at those steps and remember a very special person who I have had the privilege to know.  

Chris and Alpha cat on a lazy Sunday afternoon

not keen to cook but very good at giving instructions to the cook!

With Holly and myself at the unofficial farewell party in his Reconcile t-shirt that we had made.

The official farewell with staff

The presentation from the head Nurse of the paediatric ward.

 

2 months old today!

Yes, it is hard to believe but Jottings from my African kitchen table is 2 months old today
39 posts with 1,236 page views. So thank you all for reading and I hope my ponderings continue to entertain you.
Coming up
thoughts on the actual kitchen table
our Fillet Mignon, which I made for dinner on the week end
updates on what is happening with Swahili Summer
2 camping trips are on the cards in the next month
the latest business ideas I am toying with and test running
family stories
Tarbu's latest escapades

and of course our garden moving into Spring and Summer


Happy Monday!

Strong Women, Strong Babies, Strong Culture - 20 years young!

Back in 1996, after returning from my first trip to Africa with just $50 in my pocket, I decided to try a bit of ‘bush’ nursing. Within a week of making a phone call I found myself in the middle of Western Australia - Alice Springs was 1000 km in one direction and Kalgoorlie was 990km in the other – with 400 Aboriginals and a handful of whites who were obviously just as mad as me to want to live in the middle of nowhere with a long dirt road or the weekly plane offering the only escape route! Cath Josif, whom I met on my first day, remains a very dear friend, we have worked together in different locations over the years and have regular face book chats even 1000’s of kilometers apart.

This was Warburton, just off the Gun Barrel, which if you are a Midnight Oil fan you will be familiar with from their Blue Sky Mine album (they did visit and play at the school during one tour). It was the largest settlement for hundreds of miles!

I ensconced myself in the ‘baby clinic’ as, up to then, the only adults I had ever looked after were pregnant women.

A lot of my time was spent talking to mothers about infant and child nutrition. I had a television and a collection of videos, some I found in the clinic and several that a friend in Darwin had sent me. There were two that we loved and played over and over. One, at least 10 years old, featured an old man from a community way up on the coast of Northern Territory. His name was Dick Yumbal and he talked for hours about his traditional bush farming and his ‘numbers and numbers of watermelons’.

The other video was about an amazing group of Aboriginal women, again in the north of NT, who had come together to work with the young mothers in their communities in an effort to improve antenatal and infant nutrition and health. They had put together a program taking the best of traditional knowledge and ways but also taking into account scientifically proven ideas relating to pregnancy, child birth and infant care. The program was called ‘Strong Women, Strong Babies, Strong Culture’. We watched the video so many times we did not need to have the sound turned up, we knew it off by heart!

January 1999, I found myself in Darwin. Again, after a few phone calls, within days I was on my way out to a small island called Milingimbi for a 3 month contract…………………I finally left 5 years later.

A larger population, just over 1000 at the time, on a tropical island with the sea literally lapping at the clinic door, it could not have been more different to my WA desert experience.

I walked into the clinic for my first morning of work and, there they are! I am face to face with at least three women from the video I have been watching everyday for years! It is weird, I feel as if I know them so well.

As I spent a lot of time again in the baby clinic (0-5 years) I worked closely with the Strong Women over the next 5 years and developed an enormous respect for them and the program as well as wonderful friendships including their District Coordinator, Marlene, who would come every month or so to visit. They were and still are so dedicated to their community and culture.

I also eventually met Dick Yumbal. I was sent across to the mainland to Ramingining, for a few weeks and he was still growing his numbers and numbers of watermelons and was quite pleased he was famous in the Western Australian desert.

The SWSBSC Program has been through many ups and downs over the years. It started as an independent program and then had to adjust to being part of the Department of Health. My opinion on this move has wavered over the years. In some ways it made things easier for the women, being part of the health team in each community, however, in many ways it greatly reduced their autonomy over the way they ran the program and also having to deal with the beaurocracy of a government department was a massive learning curve which changed some vital aspects of the program.

I was very closely involved with the women during this time.

On a visit home, I called into the office of my friend Karen. Of course I was always ready to consider any short term work that might be on offer. She took full advantage of my situation and I returned to Kenya to pack up my house and my cat and returned to Darwin for 18 months as the Project Officer working on bringing the recent evaluation recommendations for the SWSBSC Program and the Community Child Health Worker Program (which I had set up 5 years earlier) to some sort of fruition.

It was in fact my dream come true, the ultimate peak of my career! To be working directly with Marlene, Barbara and the ladies in the program. It was also a very challenging time. Trying to fulfill my contract commitments whilst remaining true to the original objectives and vision of the program. The reality being the program had survived so far on their own and although there had been ups and downs the women knew exactly the direction they wanted to take and how to get there. Sometimes we have to step back and admit that our terribly organised, professional ways are not the most suitable in all situations. There are times when traditional, less obvious methods and approaches, may take longer to meet the goal but they are more appropriate.

Of course the best part of the job for me was traveling out to the communities and spending time with the SWSBSC workers during their working day. I also wanted to get as much recognition as possible for the women and their work. There were still people in the department who did not know really what the SWSBC role was. We started a news letter, featuring different workers each issue, the work they were doing, any special events and updates on the program. By the end of my time we had a mailing list of over 250 people all over the country.

Last week I received an email from Marlene. It was sent to a group of us who have been connected with the program over the years. The program is 20 years old and the women had been invited to parliament house as part of the celebrations. Very few of the original women are still alive. But the fact that we are celebrating 20 years shows the firm foundation on which they originally built has survived the test of time. The program remains ‘owned’ by the women and the families that they work with and has outlived many other attempts at health education style programs. The positive effects and results of their work have been written up in nutritional and medical journals; they have been invited to speak at conferences across the world; and they have been invited to communities across Australia and Asia to introduce the ideas of the program to other indigenous women’s groups.       

Every so often I toy with the idea of bringing Marlene and some of the women to Kenya and introducing them to different communities I have worked with over the years. The problems faced here and the political and social situation are very different but I guess one objective that would be achieved would be giving the women in villages here the opportunity to see that if you have the belief and determination to change problems being faced by your community, it can be done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=DTI7Agc8HPs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=wz7P2sKPkjI

 

These links should take you to 2 You tube videos that were made by Deadly TV.

 

Everyone in Darwin for a week of orrientation to the health department

 

Marmalade campaigning outside the local store, Tiwi Islands

Nutrition education, Milingimbi style.

    

 

Wine Tasting Class - Week Three. A flavourful and emotional journey.

I think this is what BBC World would call ‘live feed’ I am sitting in the tasting room at www.wineshop about to start my third class. My regular class mates are here including John and Ciku. Lorna is moving around making last minute finishing touches as we wait for Juan.  

During the first class, which seems so long ago now, we learned about the wine making process, looked at the major wine growing areas of the world both new and old and discussed the pros and cons of each. Finally we were introduced to the art of tasting wine and how to fully appreciate and assess a wine through colour, clarity, fragrance and finally taste. I must admit my glass swirling technique needs some practice. Juan holds his glass by the foot and swirls it around as if it is an extension of his hand making a perfect wave in the glass, mine sort of sloshes from side to side until I find that resting it on the table and moving in a circular motion creates a similar wave AND greatly reduces the risk of losing the contents of the glass. Of course we also discuss what to eat with different wines as we are all here for the full experience and already thinking about lunch and supper.

In our second class we worked our taste buds through ten wines – five white and five reds – in an attempt to differentiate grape varieties and their individual characteristics. Ciku and I are both feeling a bit tipsy after number 6 but we soldier on, after all it is Saturday and we can relax at home afterwards.   

Juan has arrived and is pleasantly surprised to find everyone seated. He has a cold (it must be going around) and is unable to guide us in the tasting so we are reliant on our experience of several weeks as wine tasters, this should be interesting!

Today we are looking at sweet or dry and what this really means in the world of wine. Up to now ‘sweet’ wine means totally undrinkable in my books BUT I am here to learn so maybe at the end of 2 hours I will appreciate them more (maybe I have just been drinking them with the wrong foods!).

We start with sweet or desert wines. Talking about sugar and alcohol content and the art of getting a balance of both.
How do they get the optimum sugar levels in the grapes in order to make ‘sweet’ wines.
Naturally sweet, fortification; stopping fermentation process;
Adding sugar – not so good in Juan’s book as your body has to deal with the excess sugar.
Then there are wines made from different grapes such as raisins – drying the grape first increases the sugar level; and interesting concepts like the ice wines from Alsace and Germany – end of season harvest which has the highest sugar, picked after the first hail storm when the grapes have frozen. This holds the sugar in the grape.
Nobel Rot wines – results when the growers leave the grapes until October when it starts to get cold and the grapes have been affected by a fungus which also acts to concentrate the sugar.
Sauternes, the best sweet wines in the world. We pass around a bottle of 1986 – it is the colour of rich honey, even the label is honey coloured, we are all in awe holding the bottle as if it is a delicate flower! Of course the first question from John is ‘but what do we eat with it?’ the answer is music to my ears – ‘Foi gras or Roquefort cheese – two of my favourite treats from France.
We move onto sherry from Spain, straw wines from France.

 

Sitting up the front of the class I can see that Juan is struggling, he obviously feels like crap (much the same as Jim has been all week, I imagine). But this is a man who is passionate about his wines and obviously loves teaching and sharing his knowledge and he is going to get through this class if it kills him. We don’t have the aid of the internet screen today so he is having to do a lot more talking that usual.

 

Woops but here is the screen and we can see exactly what Juan has been describing when talking about ice wine and noble rot. And I can get my spelling correct without asking!

 Tokaji from Hungary is on the screen – a beautiful bottle and box with medieval style art work

Pedro Ximenez – originally from Germany brought to Spain by a soldier centuries ago and now know as a Spanish desert sherry. It is a name very familiar to me, often referred to in many recipes but I have never had the pleasure of ‘meeting’ it.

 Time to taste

1. First up is a Muscat from Western Cape – VERSUS sweet ‘tropical sensation’. Very pale in colour, fresh and peachy on the nose. High viscosity which apparently is a way of identifying a sweet wine in a blind tasting. I am pleasantly surprised and may have to change my opinion of sweet wines; it is quite refreshing but still exotic tasting.
2. A red from the same winery – the ‘legs’ fall slowly down the glass another identifier of a sweet wine. Sulphides on the nose and no fruit at all which thankfully don’t come through as much in the mouth. It is a pleasant taste; quite light but a few mouthfuls is enough for now.
3.  Another Muscat, grapes not raisins so again the colour is quite pale. Woow, go slow it has 15% alcohol.
Too sweet as a wine for me but it gives that lovely warm glow similar to sherry or whisky as it goes down. 

The air-conditioning is affecting our expert noses as it literally blows away any fragrance we created with our swirling. Juan manages to get it turned off.

4. Boschendal from SA Cape area Vin D’or 2011 natural sweetness from the noble rot. Beautiful gold honey colour but surprisingly only 10% alcohol. The nose is not attractive – nail polish acetate. Very pleasant on the tongue, honey but light.
5. The last bottle is De Bortoli Noble One Botrytis Semillon 2007 25^th anniversary vintage from Australia. Beautiful amber colour, deep and rich and the aroma is wonderfully smoky, it reminds me of walking into a timber yard and smelling newly cut cedar. The taste is, to use Juan’s words luscious. After a few minutes it suddenly comes to me – soft, plump, French prunes – there is a very slight bite with deep complex sweetness.

We all go for a second taste of the De Bortoli and on my first mouthful I am transported to a paddock of sun bleached grass, a few sheep in the distance, the voice of the crow and kookaburra and the scent of the eucalypts on the warm dry breeze is so strong on the palate. This is such a weird feeling. How can a tasting a wine evoke such a feeling of home; suddenly whisking you 1000’s of miles across the Indian Ocean? It is ridiculous; it is so real I feel the tears welling up with home sickness. But then there is something very familiar about the name, my obsessively logical mind tells me it is not just the fact that this is the 6^th tasting of the day! We ‘google map’ the address on the back of the label

 
BilBul 2680

And all becomes clear. This wine was born less than 50kms from where I and my brothers, our cousins, our mother, were born. This wine and I have our feet planted in the same soil, the soil of the New South Wales Riverina.

In wine speak we are of the same minerality – the unique characteristics of the soil in which a vine is grown being detected in the fragrance and taste of the wine.  

 

Ciku waiting to begin - we were both quite relieved there was only 5 glasses set at each place this week!

Juan - Sommelier extraordinaire

The emotionally evocative Noble One