Went for a walk
I wish I knew what all these plants were. I know the thistles but not much beyond that.
Finally got around to putting together a short video of our trip to Dumfries & Galloway. Complete with recording a cover of I’ll Never Find Another You by The Seekers.
After a week of eating porridge oats for breakfast, this has been a really nice change. A sort of congee, made with vegetable broth, peas and spinach. A couple of fried eggs. Sriracha. It’s still technically porridge.
There are quite a few equestrian centres within walking distance of our village.
The trees have eyes!
I wish I knew what all these plants were. I know the thistles but not much beyond that.
Hard to beat this sight when it’s bright, sunny and the work for the day is done.
It’s the smell of summer. That familiar whiff of smoke. The bursts of light. Flickering serpents’ tongues licking up the oxygen.
I remember reading survivalist books when I was a kid. We lived in rural Arizona and went camping a lot. There was always some actual risk of needing to know how to survive in the wild. So I learned all of the ways to build a fire. An easy task when you live in the Arizona desert. The scent of a campfire was as ever-present as the smell of DEET-rich insect repellent we covered our bodies in.
Now that I’ve got my own kids, it feels nice to finally have a fire pit of our own, here in Scotland. Nothing big, just enough for us to huddle around. To cook if we want to. To make it feel a bit like the summers I had as a kid.
Because summer just isn’t fun when you’re grown up.
Back from holiday. Working on some paintings from photos I took.
Iced coffee on a cold June day using James Hoffman’s iced Aeropress technique. It is so so good.
Found this guy on the pavement today.
With each sticker, this old MacBook Air becomes more and more valuable as a scrapbook of the last two years.
Sermon-writing today. Actually trying to write it out by hand. It will need to be typed up still, but it is a joy to use my stationery for it.
Just a bit of early-mid April snow after a bright, sunny day. Honestly, it feels right. ❄️
The finished dish. It’s a bit much during the week but perfect on a Saturday after a good run.
Making the River Cottage adaptation of Jansson’s Temptation for lunch.
Made Hokkaido for the first time. Looking forward to them cooling enough to try!
Some evenings are just better with a strong coffee.
A year ago, I started a couch to 5k program. It wasn’t the first time I’d started one but being in lockdown in Warsaw meant it was the first one I finished. After another month of running I was able to achieve a 35-minute 5k. That felt like a really big accomplishment.
Eight weeks ago, I started a training plan to increase my speed. It shaved about 4 minutes off my total time. Finishing something for the first time is a big deal. Learning to keep improving seems like it is the actual work.
The newsletter is going to have to wait for the new week as I only just got the email that my account is back up again. In the meantime, I’ve ruined pizza by putting broccoli on it before getting ready to head to church to lead worship for Good Friday.
We bought a Dutch oven and I finally got around to baking a loaf of bread in it!
My wife has started painting trees and I get to have the first one on the wall by my desk.
Sometimes, you get taken in by colour. Sometimes by the shape of words. Sometimes by the words themselves. But sometimes, all three.
Sun, flowers, but not sunflowers
My parents gave me some birthday money and one of the things I ordered finally arrived!
Blue skies for days today.
And days. It has been a truly glorious weekend up here.
Sunday morning commute to church for the service live-stream. Looking forward to when this commute is for live, in person, gathered congregation worship.
I’m so impressed with the cake my wife made for me. She does not like baking, but she did an amazing job.
So this is 32. Running 8km seems like a good way to celebrate.
What is there to say about baking?
I wrote on my newsletter about how running helps to keep me sane. Baking is something that soothes my heart. When I’m baking bread, it’s like I get to do magic. To take four or five ingredients and have the potential to turn them into so many different things is a kind of alchemy. Fight me, you won’t change my mind.
To get a little bit nerdy, I can confirm that adding a pre-ferment or poolish to the process means you can get really good flavour and texture while making the bread work around your schedule.
This was a bread that I made for our dinner today. I made it between finishing up my sermon for Sunday, going for a run and completing my weekly review. Normally, a poolish has to be done the night before. Except I forgot to make it last night. Thankfully, two hours will get the job done.
Yes, you sacrifice some of the sour notes that you’d get from an overnight fermentation but when it’s bread that’s going to be paired with something like a chorizo stew, you won’t miss the sour notes.
The other thing is that I did not knead this. I did some stretch-and-pulls after the first half hour of bulk fermentation and that was it. Then I got on with things.
The result? A bread that I feel like I could make just about every day. It’s just a matter of learning enough about how bread works to make it work with your schedule, to say nothing of what you can do if you add in the ability to use the fridge.
In case you’ve missed it, I started a new newsletter. The focus of this one is a bit more general than my previous newsletter (r.i.p. Fake Suede). You can sign up for it here!
I took this a week or so ago while out on a run. The landscape here is beautifully bleak.
A birthday traybake
I really love living here.
I’ve been doing some work on my family’s missions website and I have to say, I kind of like the new blocks editor in Wordpress. Also, if you’re so inclined, go check it out.
We got back from a trip to Kraków yesterday. Managed to do some painting while we were there.
Yesterday, we decided that it was worth braving the cold and the rain to make the bus journey to the PGE Narodowy. It’s Poland’s national stadium and for the last couple of months, it has been home to a huge LEGO exhibition.
Some of the events that we’ve tried to go to here in Warsaw have been… well, let’s just say that they were talked up a bit more than they could really make happen. This event, however, was crazy. I mostly took little videos of the event, but my wife took a bunch of photos.
This was one of the few things that had something for everyone in our family. My wife is a new convert to the wonders of LEGO while the kids and I have always been obsessed.
Today, my friend Nate took me out for his favourite pizza. Ham, bananas, curry. It was surprisingly… good.
f r a c t a l
Decided to do a quick sketch for PANCAKE DAY. I’m really pleased with how it turned out!
PANCAKE DAY
I think I’m getting a little bit better at this? One of my favourite things about watercolour is that it doesn’t have to be perfect and it really helps me fight perfectionism. Speaking of which, I’ll probably be exploring perfectionism in an issue of Fake Suede in the coming weeks.
Got another really good gradient. Sunsets here in Poland do not disappoint. They’re no Arizona sunset, but still really nice.
When we moved to Warsaw, I started to wonder what this life is that my family is living now. I don’t live where I’m from and neither does my wife. This is kind of a third place for us.
Fake Suede is a bi-weekly newsletter where I will be writing about what it’s like to live where you don’t expect to be and how to be curious when something as simple as grocery shopping is mentally exhausting. It’s also going to be about raising a big family in cultures where they’re kind of… unusual.
The plan for the moment is to keep the length of the newsletter between 500-750 words. I thought about posting them here to the blog, but somehow it doesn’t feel like it fits here. It feels more like letters written to someone. And so it’s a newsletter.
As readership increases, I will be introducing a paid option but the base newsletter will always be free. When I start to charge, it will be for something on top of the regular newsletter, not for the regular newsletter.
All of that to say, the first one goes out in a couple of weeks. If any of this sounds remotely interesting to you, I hope you’ll join me as I write about this. Oh, and it’s called Fake Suede because my surname is the same as a certain luxury textile used in the automotive industry and on some computer keyboards.
Sermon and worship prep day.
My eldest daughter is 10 today. She wanted me to make a galette instead of a cake. Thanks to Josh Weissman, the face is now a required step in the pastry process.
Sunset
Been listening to David Tennant reading War of the Worlds.
Today’s bread. Trying to get my head around working with rye, this one is only about 23% rye but it was still a bear to try and shape.
I bake when I’m stressed. I’ve been baking a lot lately.
First quick sketch of the year. My wife and I are doing Cal Newport’s Analog January challenge. My make part of the challenge is to complete four paintings this month. They have to be done on paper, no digital painting allowed. For me, that means sketches like this count.
Learned the hard way that Stabilo fineliners are not water-proof so the index in my bullet journal is a bit of a mess now. I also learned some of the limits of Seawhite’s cartridge paper.
2019 has been a crazy year. I’m grateful to have been able to document it in this notebook. It’s a Leuchtturm1917 B5 composition notebook. 2020 will be starting with a Seawhite Travel Journal. No lines because 2020 is looking like it will be a crazy year.
My wife managed to get a photo of my kids’ hands in the mittens that I knit them for Christmas this year. Note to self: next time you’re knitting for all of the kids, choose something that doesn’t come in pairs!
My first time making baguettes. They turned out so much better than I thought they would!
2019 was a year full of highs and lows. The first seven months were spent in Liverpool doing ministry in a hard place. I studied biblical counselling and how to see the smallest positives as examples of God working in big ways.
Taking my son, Liam, to his first ⚽️ match was a huge joy and won me over to the beautiful game.
I had a surprise day off and the weather was beautiful. Tracy, Owen and I took the opportunity to spend the day in Liverpool One while the big kids were in school.
At the last minute, we were able to book a holiday home in Cornwall for the May holiday. It ended with Owen being very unwell and a 10-hour drive but it was an amazing time in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen.
One of our favourite things to do in Liverpool was walk down the road to Stanley Park so the kids could burn some of their energy.
It was also a year where I found myself unexpectedly separated from my wife and kids. August and September were the hardest time of my life. I had no way of going to see them and had to spend my days reading the Bible and praying about ministry opportunities in Europe while we wait the 12 months that are required before I apply for a new visa to the UK.
My first week back in 🇺🇸 was actually kind of nice. Tracy and I got to travel without the kids. It was a joy to have uninterrupted conversations.
I left 🇺🇸 and landed in 🇵🇱 in mid-September. Since arriving, I’ve learned a lot about working with different church cultures and a lot about how to sing in a foreign language. Benny the Irish Polyglot talks a big game about how Polish isn’t that difficult to learn but he is so very wrong.
Tracy and the kids joined me at the start of October. Since then, we’ve been homeschooling and trying to see as much of Warsaw as we can by public transport.
In November Tracy and I celebrated 11 years of being married. We called this year the Spinal Tap year because we’ve gone to 11.
It’s a strange thing to be missing Christmas traditions from two different countries while we live and serve in a third. It was a quiet day and the kids played with their toys all day long.
This was not the year I thought it was going to be. Not by a long shot. But, in the end, it was a good year.
Here’s to 2020.
Our church had a Wigilia(Christmas Eve) party this past Sunday. 🎄
Homemade eggnog, courtesy of Serious Eats, chilling in the fridge. I swapped out the rum for bourbon and decided to do the cocktail shaker version instead of the meringue version because I do not have the time to whip egg whites by hand. 🎄
Christmassing. 🎄
Christmassing. 🎄
We’ve got a 7-year-old on our hands!
Sermon prep for the first time for our church in Warsaw. It’s still so crazy to me that I was absolutely horrified by the idea of speaking in public a year ago and now I’m preparing my fourth sermon this year.
I learned that I have a built in table for a cup of coffee.
This feels really nice. 🎄
One day I’ll get the hang of this watercolour thing…
American Bird Grasshopper, referencing a photo from Wikipedia.
I desperately miss Christmastime in the UK, but this was a nice surprise to see when I went grocery shopping today.
First and only shawl/kerchief of 2019, modelled by my 8yo daughter. This was also my first time making it up as I went rather than starting with a pattern. Hoping to knit some more in 2020.
It’s been a couple of months since my last drawing. Was a nice way to spend a bit of the evening.
Wednesdays are my days for studying. I really miss working through the BCUK course and I hope to start the second year of it next year. In the meantime, I’m finally getting a chance to work through Calvin’s Institutes as well as a book on leadership that I was meant to be going through with a couple of the pastors at Trinity Church Everton.
It feels pretty good to have reached this point in my word count.
This is from a week ago and I’m posting it as form of procrastination from getting further with the novel I am supposed to be writing right now.
Still life.
I try not to post pictures of food because my blog isn’t Instagram, but I just had an amazing vegan pastrami (I’m not vegan or vegetarian) sandwich from Krowarzywa, a vegan burger place near where I’ve been staying in Mokotów, Warsaw.
Spent the day being a tourist.
It took coming to a country I had never considered moving to before to finally try tonic espresso. The upshot is that I can actually afford it here. This one is from MOKO kawiarnia.
My parting gift from my mom was a Savage Industries EDC One that she has been working on for the last six months. It’s a beautiful bag made more so by the knowledge that she made it with her hands and that the cloth it’s made from used to be a sail out at sea.
My time in 🇺🇸 is almost done so it was a race against the clock to get these done. These are both for my wife who I miss so much and can’t wait to see when she and the kids get to 🇵🇱 from 🇬🇧.
We finally have a way forward for my to join my family again. Over the course of this next year, I will be serving with a church plant in Wilanów, a district of Warsaw. I leave Saturday and arrive there Sunday afternoon. I’m really excited about this upcoming year but I’m still so sad to not have the chance to say goodbye to our church family in Liverpool. If you’re interested in following along or supporting our work to help reach the 30k people in Wilanów, visit our missions website.
Does this count as a still-life?
Went for an evening ride that took me through old suburbs, river front, protected wetland and farmland all in under an hour.
I went to my nephew’s first ⚽️match this morning. The sun was very bright and I forgot to bring a hat.
Another sewing project today. I really like making these little project bags. 🧵
Day trip with my parents!
My first sewing project in ages. Wanted to make some knitting project bags while I had access to sales at the fabric store and my mom’s sewing machine. 🧵 🧶
I miss these faces so much. We’re working on missions opportunities on the Continent so that hopefully we’ll be all together again in a couple of weeks.
Another quick sketch while listening to Dear Hank & John.
I’m supposed to be recovering from jet lag right now, but I’m still in the States. I’ve tried to stay productive in a sense, even though the things I was working on are all in Liverpool. I did a quick illustration on my iPad today, though.
Fresh off the needles, the Irish Hiking Scarf. 🧶
There’s a storm coming.
This quick painting was a race against the fading sunlight.
First pair of socks are officially off the needles. 🧶
I finished my first sock! 🧶
Making socks for the first time while I continue to wait for my visa and inbetween booking meetings with people.
Little Daisy is keeping me company while I miss my wife and kids (they’re all back in the UK while I await my visa).
I had a great time at a hymn sing with my friends from Cross of Christ Fellowship last night. It was a really lovely evening at the Naperville Riverwalk too!
Taco special from the The Jalapeño Grill.
Really big lunch at Colombian’s Taste with my dad.
MAN🛫ATL. Next stop is ORD.
Visa Renewal Mission, stage one has commenced with a 🚞 from Liverpool to Manchester Airport!
Been trying to practice boats. Slowly getting there. Need to work on how the boards are placed still, but I’m pleased with how the overall sketch turned out.
As I get ready to spend nearly a month away from my family to renew my visa, days like today do a lot to give me good photos to look at while I’ll be missing them. Mike Skinner was right when he said memories are times we borrow for spending tomorrow.
The kids have their last day of school today and I cannot believe how much they’ve grown up since their first day.
The weather has been gorgeous which means we’ve been at Stanley Park two evenings in a row! This evening we had a picnic before letting the kids play on the playground. Then it was a walk by the lakes to see the duck families. These flowers are all over the place.
Took my younger daughter out for a date in town!
The big kids and I were in Southport with our church for a day-away a couple weeks ago. The youngest was at home recovering from pneumonia with my wife.
It’s been a rough few days, but this with a coffee is a welcome reprieve before getting back to things.
I don’t know if this is my favourite album of 2019 yet because of the Middle Kids one that was released, but it’s got a shot.
It’s 23 and sunny at Stanley Park! ☀️
Wires.
One heck of a view for my study day today.
🎶 Come on, grab your friends… we’ll go to very distant lands… 🎶
Getting ready to look through the next part of Christianity Explored with a guy today. It’s both comforting and frustrating to know that the Word of God is what does the work of convincing.
New house blend from Manumit Coffee. Really looking forward to this one. It smells amazing in the bag.
The office tonight is this slab of hot metal while I help out with the launch BBQ for a new program our addictions ministry is running. Haven’t manned a grill like this for a few years now.
Casio (and a couple of Youtubers) have the audacity to call this a timepiece.
We were in Cornwall a couple weeks ago. It was lovely.
Without a doubt, this is my favourite music release of 2019. I adored Lost Friends and this is such a great little follow up!
Working on sermon prep, a response paper and discussion notes at Liverpool Central Library today. Quite possibly the best library.
Had a day off in the week because I’m working on Saturday. It’s been a good one.
It’s springtime in Liverpool!
Really enjoying getting to read a book that I don’t have to read. 📚
Catching up on some reading for my Biblical counselling course in a nearly-empty Caffé Nero. Seeing how sitting in the sunniest seat upstairs does for me after a very long, stressful week.
Just took the recycling out and found these guys (and a few more on the side of the wall) enjoying the light rain.
Sometimes, you just need a bit of avocado toast in the morning.
Doing some more studying while I roast a chicken. We’re starting this group up tomorrow and I’m really excited and more than a little bit nervous. This on top of sermon prep this week has made it a very Scripture-filled week. I am both overwhelmed and overjoyed.
Really excited to give this a go. It’s coffee roasted by people who have been freed from modern slavery.
I’m really excited about starting this group up at our house this Thursday. It, like participating in the inter-faith dialogues, feels like the reason why we moved to 🇬🇧. If you’ve been following along as I’ve shared a bit about this, do be praying for the people that join us as we look at Mark’s gospel and learn about why it is such good news.
This book I’m reading for my biblical counselling course is really making my brain hurt, but on the plus side, I’m marking it up with a Muji pen. My first time using one and they’re amazing.
I was in town for a meet-up of other AT3 apprentices on Thursday and Friday and we were taken on a Liverpool church history tour by our director and founder, Ken.
Fun facts are:
The Anglican cathedral in Liverpool was only completed in 1979 in spite of the fact that it looks centuries old.
JC Ryle, Liverpool’s first Bishop is buried there even though he was against building a cathedral in favour of planting churches instead.
Lord Derby, who was also Lord Stanley (as in the Stanley Cup) is also buried there.
It was a really good time getting to hang out with other Americans who are here for the same reason and hearing from Mark Pickles, director of the Northwest Partnership, and Michael Reeves, the president of Union School of Theology.
Considering I’ve been interrupted by my 2-year-old son, a grocery delivery, some friends picking up some stuff we stored for another friend and my wife getting home after helping out with a craft for Trinity Tots, I would say I have had a good writing day so far.
Normally, Thursday is a study day. For a couple of weeks it’s a dedicated writing day as I think through cultural adjustment and how to help prepare new AT3 apprentices for how it will affect their time in 🇬🇧.
Getting a little bit better each time. This one is based on a house designed by Eric at 30x40 Design Workshop.
Time to do some sketching.
We did some furniture rearranging and now I’ve got a desk in our lounge. Now I can take advantage of the sunlight during the day.
Doing a bit of sermon prep today for Bible-teaching training that will be happening on Saturday. Really enjoying writing out the text over a spread in my Leuchtturm1917 Master Slim. Working with the equivalent of an A3 sheet of paper is super-nice.
Got to take one of my boys to the LFC Legends charity match today with our pastor and his son. I get football now.
There’s a bingo night every week in the community centre where our church’s offices are kept. I’ve somehow been trusted to be left alone in a room with all of this.
Cathedral.
I’m really enjoying this devotion book from Tim Chester right now. Also featured here is my beloved Kaweco AL Sport that I won in a Jet Pens giveaway a few years ago.
Working in Procreate again for another women’s event flyer for Trinity Church Everton.
Time to play around and hope that I don’t end up completely sick with whatever my kids have.
More showering of birthday presents!
Getting ready to begin this with my family tonight. Really looking forward to it.
It’s Pancake Day!
Today is the day I began playing D&D.
Drawing again. Decided to signup for Skillshare after being beat over the head by ads for them. Turns out, it really is worth it.
¾ of my kids four years ago today. Our youngest was still a couple years away at this point.
Match.
Quick little drawing based on a tutorial by Christopher Hart. My Master Slim notebook again; the initial sketch was done with a Blackwing 602, line art with an 03 Micron and then the Staedtler Noris coloured pencils that my kids say they use at school. This is fun!
The Friday market was woefully disappointing so I walked back into town and picked this up from the used bookstore, A Reader’s Dream. They haven’t got a website or anything, I don’t even think they have a phone number available. In any case, I really enjoyed the first book in Lawhead’s Pendragon cycle so I’m looking forward to this one too.
Just graphite this time. Cheap Ryman 2B lead in a Rotring 600. Using my Leuchtturm1917 Master Slim. It’s been a good way to spend the evening.
Analog art is hard, but I don’t hate this and it was a good way to spend 45 minutes this evening.
Today was a day with nothing planned so I took my 6-year-old to the park so he could burn some energy. I love Liverpool but it is nice to be spending some time this close to these views.
Making some more progress on the The Isla Wrap. I forgot how much I enjoy knitting.
It’s our first family holiday since we’ve arrived in the UK and we are back in our old stomping grounds, Melton Mowbray. We lived here from 2010-2011 and it’s nice to be back.
It was strange how little the town seems to have changed in the eight years since we were last here, but that’s kind of the way rural market towns are. A few shops have changed but we watched changes like that happen during the year that we spent here.
Today, besides the kids going to the cinema with their grandparents, was about visiting the cattle and farmers market.
The kids really enjoyed seeing the sheep and cows as well as buying toys from the market stalls. My highlight, besides picking up a copy of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s massive book on raising and cooking meat (at the end of this post), was this sandwich.
The pork was raised in nearby Rutland by Farmer Lou and came complete with stuffing and apple sauce. It was a very heavy brunch indeed.
Knitting for the first time in a year!
There’s something special about writing while listening to sad piano music and seeing the British countryside from my seat on this train.
February is a big birthday month for us. This time, it’s Chloe’s turn to be 8!
I cannot believe my eldest daughter is 9 years old now!
This little guy is 2 today!
I think I’m addicted to cortados.
One from the weekend.
Of an evening.
The community centre where our church offices are located is starting a Tuesday afternoon social club and I get to work on making marketing materials for it!
I took the big kids into town so that my wife could have some quiet and a chance to rest while she’s not feeling well. It was a 5 miles of walking kind of day spent making holograms at FACT and looking at modern art at Tate Liverpool. Today was a good day.
It’s a very grey day and it’s been perfect for working through reading the second half of a book for my counselling course.
I made a pie!
Yard.
Another shot from our walk in Stanley Park the other day.
A shot from the lake at Stanley Park this morning. It’s been a good day.
First time making/eating kedgeree. Omg.
This nativity play just got kind of intense. I haven’t been behind a set up like this in a long time.
Sewing together 14 metres of fabric today. Pursuing ministry for 15 years didn’t prepare me for this.
6 hours, 4 drafts, 1 cup of coffee, 1 cup of tea and my final assignment for this counselling module is complete!
I’ve only baked a couple of loaves of bread since we’ve been in 🇬🇧. Hopefully this changes that trend a bit.
Was in another part of Liverpool today.
Channeling my inner-Doc&Devo today with a couple 602s, Golden Bears, a regular Blackwing and a Staedtler Noris which seems to be the cultural equivalent of the Dixon Ticonderoga over here.
Today, my office is the nearest Costa Coffee while I try and get this last paper revised, rewritten and submitted. Going to be a long one.
Now that it’s basically December, one of my favourite Christmas albums gets to keep me company while designing more flyers for more Christmas events at the church.
Nights that have to be spent studying rather than relaxing are worth it when you get to read stuff like this by Sinclair Ferguson.
Did not expect to see these in Britain.
Took the boys to Stanley Park to play and go for a walk.
Today’s office for study day is the library’s reading room.
So very thankful for getting the hang of using Procreate.
Early afternoon tea at the Booth Mansion. It sounds like an Audrey Hepburn film in here.
We’ve been married for ten years today and it still feels like day one.
The sweet taste of success when you get second place in the pub quiz that you attended by accident! Those flasks aren’t empty either, they gave them to us full!
We’ve arrived in Chester!
Thursdays are generally my day for studying for my biblical counselling course. I usually try to study at a cafe downtown but today, I’ve set myself up on a couch in the guest bedroom/study in our attic.
Had to run a couple of errands in town, which always leads to photos. 📷
The calm before the match.
It’s so crazy that we live so close to a spot as beautiful as this.