A new adventure...

Welcome to the very first Substack post from at Home with Mickey Robertson!

Hello everyone!

How excited I am to take this very first step into a new adventure…

For those who have been following over a long time…you know there have been multiple precursors to this new exploit, this new opportunity to story-tell my way through life in a landscape, a garden…to share thoughts, stories, musings and practical information here on the Substack platform. I can’t wait either to get into the right now…explaining all that is relevant at this particular moment in time…in the landscape, the ornamental garden; the kitchen garden as we grow and follow the yield to the plate, the field as we follow botanicals to the still and the daily nurture and care required to bring it all to bare…for a journey immersed in life as it unfolds…here at Glenmore House.

But for those who are new…here’s a little recount…to put you in the picture of where the story began!

In fact…let’s call this a pre-post….an introduction….a place to reveal some backstory alongside my intent for what’s to come, for I’ve more than an inkling that what’s to come will look very different…to what is about to follow in this particular post!

My name is Mickey Robertson and my long term career has been in the field of Interior Design (though today I also answer to gardener, cook, author, chatelaine of Glenmore House…even if some of those tags have been earned almost by default!). I grew up in the leafy eastern suburbs of Sydney, am married to Larry who hails from the highlands of Scotland, and 36 years ago (this coming May) Larry did something quite utterly absurd by putting his hand up during the auction of a once-upon-a-time dairy farm on Dharawal Country, nestled into the hills of the Razorback Range on the outskirts of Sydney, NSW, Australia; thereby securing (with a hefty mortgage!) a collection of dilapidated farm buildings and (then) 12 acres of land.

That this spontaneous act would bring about the biggest life learning curve for me, allowing me to grow…and therefore to share…was not yet apparent! We’d been married just on two years and were living in a tiny cottage the size of a pin-head in Woollahra, not too far from where I’d grown up. I was just getting my design career established after working for several years in London; we didn’t yet have children and…the original plan of the newly-weds (we’d met and married in England…long story!) had been to spend just the first few years of married life in my home country of Australia…but then most likely to return…to exactly where was uncertain, but in those giddy early married years, it mattered not. We were free, unencumbered…young…with our future lives ahead…unmapped…a blank canvas of hopes and dreams.

And then…Larry did this thing! It was a Thursday and I recall it oh so well. By way of explanation, we’d been searching on and off, for a property for friends in the UK. Something close to Sydney…they had quite specific requirements, but we were not looking for ourselves, fun as the search was. A few weeks before that fateful day, there had been a few lines in a newspaper that Larry had read aloud to me when he’d stumbled upon them…something about a stone cottage with vernacular farm buildings near Camden. I recall quite clearly saying that “it sounds divine…just what we’d love to have one day”. One day…being the two words that in my mind, I’d emphasised. And that (I thought) was the end of that…as the description did not meet (in any way, shape or form) the brief that we’d been given by our friends!

Auctions (in those days anyway) were inclined to take place in Sydney on Thursdays. And so it was that…for some reason…(I think we were expecting friends for dinner) I was home unusually early and recall the late afternoon sun streaming in through the big sliding glass door of the kitchen as I unpacked the shopping onto our tiny pine table, when the phone rang (yep…we are talking way before mobile phones…this one was attached to the wall!) and I took on that awkward position we all used to… dropping the head to one side and using an uplifted shoulder to hold the receiver to my ear, so as to keep using two hands at another task. “It’s Larry” he volunteered, quite breathless with excitement. Well yes…I realised who it was! “Do you remember that little cottage I mentioned a few weeks ago….near Camden?” “Errr…yes” says me. “I went to the auction today” says he. “Why?” Says I. “I bought it” says he. “You did WHAT???????????”

And there you go! Just like that…’twas the day that changed our lives for ever!

But I don’t want to get too bogged down in that story…not here, not now…that’s already enough! There’s a long tale of restoration…of building, of garden making, of learning…over a period of 36 years. We have two adult daughters who grew along with the garden, and are off on their own life journeys now (but they’re bound to pop up in conversation here from time to time, just as they return home for regular stints between projects and travels). We love them dearly and for the record, their names are Clementine and Bonnie.

Some 15 years ago my career in interior design took a little turn off its likely predictable path when I decided that teaching and encouraging people to grow vegetables was perhaps the most valuable contribution I might make in this life and it was then that ‘Kitchen Gardening Days at Glenmore House’ (a series of seasonal workshops…ongoing to this day) were established. Subsequently…many other opportunities arose and there have been myriad collaborations, workshops, events, open gardens, guests and visitors, from far and wide. But always at the core of every visit or event (regardless of topic) is the Kitchen Garden, the beating heart of the garden; and its organic, seasonal produce. Idyllic days…learn, dream, eat, be inspired…was the line I coined all those years ago…and I believe those words still sum up the experience guests are likely to have…at any one of the raft of spontaneous days that occur here…on a regular basis.

It was during the period of the first website though, that I was encouraged to write a Blog…which became my first attempt at sharing in writing, something of the goings-on here at Glenmore House (underpinning some of that information on growing that was being shared at workshops, alongside daily life). I remember releasing the blog on the first day of Spring which (for we antipodeans) is the first day of September. I named that first post my ‘September issue’ (with a wink and a nod to that much anticipated annual drop of a particular US fashion magazine!). I added short posts most days for a number of years and they can still be found somewhere in the bowels of the new website (although I think their order got out of kilter during the process of transition from old to new site). But honestly? It’s more important to look forward than back…though I do like having an archive as a record!).

Along the way I was invited to write a Book: ‘The House and Garden at Glenmore’ (Landscape, Memory, Seasons, Home) Murdoch 2016 which is very sadly out of print. You can still get hold of the e-book version, and although scarce as hen’s teeth, you may be lucky to pick up a hard copy somewhere online.

The book was a wonderful opportunity to recount the story and life here at Glenmore House at that moment in time…beautifully photographed by Daniel Shipp (as the two of us worked dawn ‘til dusk on ‘shoot days’ over the course of a year, capturing garden, landscape, interiors, produce…and food for the recipe section…which I’d prepare as Daniel got to work on other details). It still seems kind of surreal that the book experience occurred…and the writing and publishing of a book is indeed…a huge experience…one I am so grateful to my lovely publisher Diana Hill for coaxing me to embark upon. That people still write to tell me how they enjoy it, use the recipes, share it…or stumble upon it anew, always seems somehow as if their comments are directed to someone else! (By the way…nothing I write here will be edited by anyone else, so I apologise here and now in advance for poorly constructed sentences, an over-abundance of exclamation marks and anything else that comes out wrong!).

Post book, there was the Podcast: ‘inThe Kitchen Garden with Mickey’ which I recorded over the period of a year. This was at my own instigation and whilst I wrote the whole (after doing all the gardening work each month) then recorded the monologue and all the sounds too…every three weeks I would deliver the next audio drop to producer Leonie Marsh to compile and bring it all together as an audible whole (whilst I got on withe the notes and their accompanying images…it’s all still available to see, read and to hear on the website - or just the audio on i-tunes). Really…the podcast is more of a ‘talking book’ and was my way of putting all the information I had to share on growing seasonal, organic veg…month by month, into one place, for anyone and everyone to access. A comprehensive ‘how-to’ extending the book, which by its very nature, couldn’t accommodate all that information.

Then there was the Online Presentation Series during that peculiar, lockdown time that we all experienced across the world, as over a period of Sunday mornings a delightful audience joined me for a series of conversations accompanied by a raft of images for: ‘The Garden Journey’…the making from the very beginning. ‘Inside/Out’…an insight betwixt interior, architecture, garden and the landscape beyond. ‘an Introduction to Kitchen Gardening’…a comprehensive how-to if ever there was! And ‘The Kitchen Garden through the Seasons’ which had everyone reeling with excitement…at the possibilities kitchen gardening can yield in both visual and edible delight.

There have been author road trips and presentations, from tiny halls and country sheds to garden clubs and private houses. From the Outback to the hallowed rooms of Macquarie Street in Sydney and Collins Street in Melbourne…and pretty much everything in between…mostly…to engage and persuade peeps to get excited about…growing vegetables (if not the other topics mentioned above!).

Which brings me (in as tight a nutshell as I seem to be able to muster) to here…to this new Substack platform. Because…

So much has happened since the book. So much has happened since the podcast. There is such a great deal of ‘how-to’ that’s still in my head. And if like me, you learn best by way of small but relevant amounts of timely information, then coming along with me on this adventure might be just the lighthearted kind of platform you will enjoy.

This also comes as the call from peeps who cross my path to please do more…to write another book, to create an online workshop…to be more accessible, has quite simply reached some kind of crescendo…which has been the ultimate prompt to…launch here, on this new platform…where hopefully…I can tick the boxes for all who are asking!

Whilst my primary aim will be to share what’s going on in the garden…both the ornamental and kitchen garden in some detail (because these are the questions so regularly asked of me); alongside the field of flowers which I will explain as we go forward, there will also be an enormous amount about produce and food with plenty of recipes to share. So….

There will be flowers…

There will be soil…

There will be landscape…

There will be compost…

There will be scent…

There will be still life, interiors, with much about my abiding love of connection between inside and out…

There will be guests…and ideas…beauty and abundance…

There will be practical, honest, how-to and when-to gardening…

There will be glimpses behind-the-scenes at workshops and events…

There will be food…recipes…concoctions, as we follow the yield from garden to plate…

There will be a lot of images…(unless otherwise tagged, they’ll all be taken by me on my trusty i-phone)

There are bound to be a lot of words! (Can’t help it…there’s much to divulge and explain!)

So many of you, across generations, are already engaged with me in real life, by email, by newsletter and on instagram. I simply hope this platform will be a way of filling in the gaps, of continuing our many and varied conversations. I am so very lucky to have such a wonderful community that I’ve long called ‘friends of Glenmore House’. You are all of course, friends of Mickey Robertson! Whether as co-collaborators, guests, participants, visitors and/or far-flung regular communicators….it’s all of you, just as much as the garden, who make my heart sing. How I hope you…as well as all newcomers, will join me as the journey continues, on this new escapade, on a whole new (for me) platform.

Now…to figure out how on earth to upload an image! Mickey x

ps I’m meant to tell you some practical things like….I aim to release a post once a week…if I miss one due to being all swept up in event prep, you can bet the following one will be extra long….or there might be two instead of one! I’m not yet sure which day of the week I’ll aim for…but it will become apparent! You’ll keep seeing subscribe buttons…please subscribe…and at least here at the very beginning…please don’t unsubscribe! I hope it won’t take too long to get into the swing of this new fangled place I find myself in!

Some links you might like to follow…especially if you’re new here:

Website: Glenmore House (where you will find access to special events, the podcast, the book and more)

Instagram: @glenmorehouse

pps after a concise ‘conversation’ with a ‘substack bot’ about the number of ‘buttons’ you may or may not see urging you to subscribe (I really hope you won’t see too many…I’ve done my best to eliminate them!) something occurred to me: every word you read here (for better or worse!) will be from my very own head, via my very own fingers tip-tapping away on my very own keyboard…there are no bots here!

Late summer view across the fluffy hedges, the borders, the olives, the Port Jackson fig and eucalypts that proliferate down in the creek, to Big Hill…the last a borrowed landscape beyond our boundary that we so love…

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