A new adventure...one year on!
How time flies…
So here I sat on 26 February last year, launching (with heart in mouth and churning stomach) into just what, I was not entirely sure. But here I am one year on because so many of you who read that very first post are still here - your correspondence (and the Substack ‘stats’) tell me so!
So it is, that somehow during the course of the last year, I fell into committing to a routine that gradually became recognised in this household as Substack Friday: “What are you doing today”? Larry might ask. “Oh it’s Friday”, he remembers. “You’re substacking”. It quickly became a thing…and so he and anyone else who might be around quickly came to realise, it’s best to give my corner of the kitchen where my desk resides, a good wide berth and to not interrupt at all! Trains of thought broken are often not recoverable! (Though if Larry should happen to be working from home, I do stop to make him a sandwich for lunch - just not mid-thought!). “Haystacking” he sometimes calls it!
Yet not more than a couple of weeks prior to last 26 Feb, I’d had no intention of “substacking” whatsoever. The platform was vaguely on my radar, but I’d not investigated it for me…only to read the posts of a couple of peeps in my realm whose writing I so enjoy. My ultimate participation can be purely put down to the wild encouragement of two younger women, both for whom I have enormous admiration. I’m still of the mind the wider world, so flooded with daily ‘content’ (uggghhh how I hate that word) doesn’t particularly need any further contribution to an already saturated information overload, from me. On the other hand, I’m not making ‘content’ for the sake of content itself. I guess my only reason for being here is to encourage. That perhaps little practical morsels from experience may slip out for positive impact or reflection, for they’re nothing but honest. Yes…I know the majority of my writing (to date anyway) has been garden (and food) based, which I hope doesn’t bore those of you who don’t garden (correspondence tells me some of you garden vicariously via my words which makes me very happy indeed). But then documenting the progress of the garden over the course of a year, seemed a logical dialogue to share and place to begin. I hope the handle I chose (rather on the spur of the moment) ‘at home with Mickey Robertson’ hasn’t been misleading…(more below).
As to where I go from here? Well…time will tell. I know there are garden bits I’ve missed out, and for those who make use of my writing to guide their own efforts (especially where kitchen gardening is concerned) I’ll not stop, though perhaps I can finally return to some of the points I mentioned I would…but couldn’t fit in at the time, for lack of time and/or space…one tangent too many can blow a post out of the water! (Near email length limit / learn more…is a rather threatening banner, highlighted in green, that always seems to pop up way too early as I tip tap away here, for my liking!)
But perhaps you would like to let me know your thoughts on what you would like to hear from me? I have a few, an inkling on where this goes, and may take the opportunity to expand into various topics as this year unfurls, but I’d love to hear from you too - after all, I’m writing for you! So perhaps take a minute to cast your minds back to the posts that may really have sparked your imagination…or stayed with you. They’re all listed in the app:
I am aware that a very good handful (well, a little more than just a handful of you) have become paid subscribers and truly I cannot thank you enough. You have no idea how seeing a little 'you have a new paid subscriber’ message makes my heart leap! It makes me feel I must be getting something right! I feel bad that I’ve written only one post so far, during the entire year that was for ‘paid subscribers’ only. It was the one called ‘Gallivanting’ and…if I can just find the time, I’d like to complete what I had intended to write for you as something extra. I just find it hard to carve out another whole day in the week!
You would think a year of “Substack Fridays’ would equal 52 posts, but somehow, I’ve sent you 56, including the two Recipe Indexes! I must have experienced a couple of overly eager weeks somewhere along the line! What I do know is that it means 56 days of solid writing…which is quite a chunk of time in a year. Could or should my time be better spent? (Bottom spread, hip-lock and eye strain aside…they’re all minimum 9 hour efforts!)
Like all of us, I question…our personal lives alongside the wider state of the world and the uncertain times in which we live. I cannot help but feel we’re witnessing the evolution of a new world order; and it’s ugly. I know I write a great deal about beauty and joy, alongside the simple and practical things of every day life. Perhaps writing of those things is enough…to keep you grounded too, in a seemingly precarious world.
So…if you’d like to continue to see me pop into your inboxes each week, I’d be thrilled to keep going. I would LOVE to encourage you to drop me a line in the ‘comments’ section at the bottom from time to time - just a short one is enough, so I know you’re there! Many of you hit ‘reply’ which arrives with me as an email (which I’m perfectly happy with!) though perhaps ‘liking’ or ‘commenting’ by hitting one of those little icons at the bottom of the post from time to time would make the site look more active! You don’t need to become a ‘paid subscriber’ to do so…or to view the posts in the app (much as I’d love you to!).
Which brings me to: I’m guessing those who launched in with such welcome support when I released this ‘new adventure’ will soon be receiving an automated prompt from the Substack platform, encouraging you to resubscribe as your year’s paid subscription comes full circle. How I hope you will be tempted to do so and thank you from the bottom of my heart. Some of you choose to pay monthly - and I say an enormous thank you to you too - afterall you’re making that decision to continue each and every month! I love seeing your names pop up - my heart skips a beat every time. I also recognise that not everyone has the means to become a paid subscriber…and my heart does the same skip and flutter when I see a new ‘free’ subscriber notification too. Thank you ALL for being here…I’m guessing by now that you have a pretty good idea of what to expect from the way I write…
One more thing before I leave the ‘anniversary’ behind! I said at the beginning that these posts would be without AI interference - which they are…they are purely me, and so they shall remain. I also suggested they would be unedited by anyone else - that simply cannot occur. One reads from time to time, that one should never put unedited (by others) work out into the world - we all need someone to run a red pen through an ill-conceived or poorly expressed thought, incorrect spelling or punctuation. But I’m afraid…it is just me here, and if there are mistakes and weird tangents well…I can only apologise…I’m not a journalist, or editor and can only write by the snippets I recall from my early education! So I hope you’ll forgive the blunders….it all comes with good intent…(and yes…I know I use too many exclamation marks!).
Oooh and one more thing…during the last year the Substack platform has released all kinds of bells and whistles…to which I’ve pretty much turned a blind eye! One of my friends did ask if I could record the posts. Hmmm…I replied. Funnily enough it was the same week the platform released yet another option! But I do think the images are so important in supporting my words (they’re also the reason I’m always ‘reaching my email length limit!). There are now video and podcast options available too! But let’s not get carried away…. I know only too well how long it took me to record each podcast segment the year I released that series….but it’s all food for thought!
Interiors…
Decorating…
As alluded to above, I realise I haven’t focussed so much to date on the ‘at home’ bit of my Substack handle, but rather more on ‘in the garden’ since launching in; the garden being such a huge part of my life. For me house and garden go hand in hand…(alongside food and soil) they are inseparable. Documenting a year in the garden, which does express me ‘at home’ seemed like such an obvious place to start - especially as these days, I think most peeps expect to hear a garden-led emphasis from me. But perhaps interiors are a topic you’d like to see me delve into more? Hmmm…well…let’s see where that might lead! Wherever I have let down my guard and introduced an interior shot or two, you know you are getting real life. No interjection from a stylist…no fiddling around and editing. All the pics I include throughout the posts are spur of the moment! My belief is that, when the whole has been realised in synchronicity…then it should sing…without overthinking.
I’ll be honest, I haven’t done quite so much decorating (an expression that perhaps sounds quaint these days but those of my own vintage understand!) or designing for those who are younger (though I’ve never been the kind to produce CAD drawings!) these last years. For past clients and dear friends, yes, they always know I’m here for them. From time to time they take over my life and everything to do with the garden, workshops and events goes almost entirely out the window. When it does happen, I consider it an honour to be invited to be involved in their project, alongside happily finding my stride back in that world that held me in its grip for the bulk of my career. At other times their requests are simple…often one liners that greet me in an early morning email: “Mickey can you please come and measure for that sisal rug we talked about”? “Mickey…what colour are we going to paint the outside of the house - it’s time”? “Mickey…what do you think we should plant in the front courtyard”? “Can we get back to that sofa or curtain or it’s time to do the blinds you talked about”. Often they’re arms-length discussions about paintings, antiques or myriad ‘wares’. From time to time I find myself involved once again on a full-blown building site and how I relish those! Though they tend not to roll around so often these days, I do love them and I’ll hazard a guess I might not have been able to launch in here on this platform if they were indeed current! (Athough now I come to think of it, there was a house down on the coast that was all-consuming for a short while last year!).
My decorating work has, for the most part, flown under the radar. My clients have always been very private, and indeed I kept Glenmore itself under close wraps for all those years….pretty much ‘til the book. An early article in Belle magazine, when we first restored the house was a boon to a newly launched “Mickey Robertson Design” in 1993. Having dissolved my Sydney based “Robertson Arrowsmith Partnership” with darling Paul (when we moved to Glenmore and he moved north) restoring the Barn as my showroom and filling it with bolts of glorious fabrics and finds from antique markets in Europe; soon I was spending much of my life on the road crisscrossing the state, to the north, the south, the Tablelands, the Hunter…as well as all over Sydney and to local jobs too. There were also a couple of years when we moved back to Sydney because I couldn’t keep up…and that was the period we built the additions to the old house. As we carried out that work, we weekended in the old house, still cooking on the single electric ring, with only a cold tap in the kitchen and racing up the stairs with a bucket to fill with hot water from the bath, to do the washing up. Goodness what a time…not one I particularly wish to revisit…but we got through it! And all the time the plans for the garden layout were evolving; our weekends were muck-laden, then I was back on site in Point Piper, Darling Point, Bellevue Hill, Woollahra, Paddington, Lindfield, St. Ives…goodness…on a Monday morning…looking organised and ‘decorator-like’!
But back to keeping both Glenmore and my client’s work under wraps; because for the most part, they, like me, have always been very private people. The bulk of my career (almost entirely of a domestic nature) was pre-digital photography and certainly pre-social media. Even now…though we can all snap away with such ease, I still feel guilty taking photos in a client’s house! I do it purely to keep as a record for future reference (so I can remember where we left off!) and of course I have hundreds, if not thousands of images. But I don’t post them because that space is theirs. Their own very private domain. I’ve simply helped to shape a space, to create good bones in which their daily lives then play out. Sure one can make a house in no time…but I’ve always been of the mindset and approach that…it takes a lifetime to make a home.
I had a flash of taking a new approach to this philosophy a few years ago, when in a (not so mild!) frenzy of excitement, upon nearing the end of perhaps the most significant restoration project of my career (ie bones, but not yet life) I boldly thought to launch a new instagram account right there and then on the spot! I was waiting for the upholsterer to arrive that fine morning and the house was otherwise empty…even the builders had cleared out. I recall the light streaming in just so…shafts of golden light that I knew would ultimately pick up and play on all the details I’d been painstakingly working to bring to fruition during the course of the previous two years. So…perched on one of the recently re-upholstered horsehair dining chairs, currently residing in the sitting room, I went scrolling…searching for a stand-alone new instagram handle, cause I was filled with this burgeoning sense of enthusiasm at what was unfolding before my eyes! I quickly discovered that @mickeyrobertson and @robertsonmickey were taken…silly me, I’d never thought to look before! I settled on @mickeyrobertson01 and there those three spur of the moment photos have sat ever since…suspended in the ether! I know I wrote on that very first post on that spontaneously created blank, white grid, that I couldn’t imagine how I could manage two instagram accounts (my usual is @glenmorehouse which I personally, have always hidden neatly behind!) and clearly I was right! So those few scarce photos of a job I shared, of details that would ultimately come together to make a quite fabulous whole, after two years working with an incredible team of builders and myriad skilled craftspeople, have sat fallow on that grid ever since! Not so the house….with new layout to the working areas of the most romantic, early colonial homestead (but the remainder completely intact) and set for the next 100 years of generations to follow. Each will no doubt, make their mark, switch things around to suit the age. During the intervening years, that ‘house’ I stood in on that morning where my passion for the project was almost blurted out for all to see…has evolved into a multi-layered home. For a house…much as I place enormous significance upon their every detail…is but a backdrop for lives to be led. Real lives, not ones for a lens beyond the eyes of family and friends…not really. I consider homes to be deeply personal spaces. Which no doubt makes me sound so very old school. Which I guess I am!
You may well be wondering the reason for this sudden and explosive tangent on interiors! Well just look…!!!!
It’s all been caused no doubt, by the state of sheer chaos we’ve been living in these last weeks! And it’s about to hit a crescendo!!!!
In what must be 36 years since our original restoration of the old house, we decided the time had come for the old cracks (same as the ones here when we began!) to be repaired. Easier said than done these days…to find someone with the skill to do the work. In fact, we’ve been trying to find the ‘right’ person for a couple of years.
As I write to you now, Karl has almost finished the final touches to the paintwork, having restored with great patience, by chipping away, making good and re-rendering in the style of the original work, back to its lovely wonkiness. For it’s all the imperfections of the old house with which we have always been so enamoured.
During the last weeks though, our world has been turned upside down! While the old house has been a scene of dust sheets and fissures in repair…
The areas unaffected by repair work resemble a Parisian antique stall! Glass, china, wall sconces, candlesticks…paintings...all on the relocated dining table for safe(?) keeping! But it’s all about to get a whole lot worse, as the 36 year old Chinese Rustic Sisal (isn’t that a good run? It’s long been my favourite sisal choice for wall to wall application and I cannot recommend that material more highly) is also being replaced: tomorrow! And so tomorrow is going to be pure hell…as the furniture currently pushed to the centre of each of the three rooms involved, must be moved outside (there’s nowhere else for it to go!) in order for the old sisal to be taken up and the replacement installed. The fact there are myriad books, albums and contents of cupboards and drawers currently sitting underneath the painter’s drop sheets on the floor, means they all need to be moved first. And quite frankly, we’re already chockers! All I know is that tomorrow morning is going to be such a scramble and then Thursday evening to get the big pieces back inside and then…it’s probably going to take weeks to get it all back in order! (I’m horrified to see there’s now the chance of a thunderstorm tomorrow afternoon…so I’m soon going to hit ‘send’ here - editing or no…to begin moving small things to save time in the morning!).
This is the kind of project I usually oversee for other people! But you know…in the end it happens to us all! (I can see some old client chuckles erupting out there!). It would perhaps be more ‘fun’ if we were redecorating. But we’re not. This is purely in the name of repair and making good. In terms of decorating, I’ve always been of the opinion that if you can get ten years out of a ‘scheme’ (for want of a better description), you’re doing well. Decorating is a big investment, of that I’m well aware. Although we carried out the main restoration 36 years ago (that first iteration saw us living amongst tea chests with nothing quite right); when we completed the additions I backtracked, and so the way the house presented in The House and Garden at Glenmore was, for the most part, about 29 years old. It hasn’t done too badly and I’ve no desire to change a thing. Hence going to enormous lengths to persuade the poor painter to learn the technique of ‘scumble glazing’ (which is not the same as French Wash). Whilst I probably wouldn’t go down the glaze track anywhere else today, were I beginning afresh, I know only too well that changing one little thing in an existing interior causes a cascade…a domino effect. And I’m neither in the mood or financially capable of re-decorating! So glazing the walls he is and he is doing such a good job!
So this week, I’m writing to you a couple of days ahead of schedule… a. to mark the one year ‘at home with Mickey Robertson’ Substack anniversary and b. because on Friday I need to prepare for Saturday’s ‘Late Summer / Early Autumn’ in the Kitchen Garden Workshop (and c. because no doubt I’ll need to move stuff so we can at least have a ‘breathe-in-as-you-go’ kind of path between the kitchen and bedroom in the wake of the sisal installation!).
I’ll give you more of an old house update next week! (That is…if you’re all still here!).
I did make a gentle start to this season’s crop rotation in the Kitchen Garden last weekend. As soon as Zara (Las Ninas Textiles) was on the road on Saturday morning, I set off to the markets to grab those Brassica seedlings I admit I don’t grow from seed myself. If I did, I would have needed to sow them in January and somehow…well you know now, how I like to use the month of January as a bit of an escape hatch and that it’s just soooo hot and…I don’t need that many brassica seedlings! So I always get them from my favourite supplier Patio Plants (who I’ve mentioned so often before). If you too, are growing, I cannot recommend their seedlings more highly. They supply a lot of ‘growers’ as well as the retail market. For me, the fourth Saturday at Camden or first Saturday at Cobbitty works, while they also visit Mittagong, Bowral, Wollongong, Kiama and Castle Hill - have a look at their website to see when they might be near you - Neil and Carmen are worth seeking out for vegie seedlings. And though I’ve tried everyone else’s seed for Butter and Mignonette Lettuce - none match up for some reason, to whatever the secret is to Neil and Carmen’s version! And their fennel seedlings…grow into big, beautiful bulbous specimens that make for excellent eating!
So having planted most of my market haul, with a little blood & bone and a handful of our own compost to each hole, as well as a smattering around each (think of it as a little soil inoculation); a top up with a smattering more then a fine layer of sugar cane mulch to settle them in; I’m good and ready to explain the season on the wane as well as the one ahead, to my participants at Saturday’s Late Summer / Early Autumn in the Kitchen Garden!
I’ll include all the usual productive notes etc. below.
And…how I hope you will all continue to join me here, on this now one year old substacking adventure!
With warmest wishes as always
Mickey x
But before I sign off properly…this one is for Margaret, with the caption…
Devour
verb (used with object)
to swallow or eat up hungrily, voraciously, or ravenously.
to consume destructively, recklessly, or wantonly:
Fire devoured the old museum.
to engulf or swallow up.
to take in greedily with the senses or intellect:
to devour the works of Freud.
to absorb or engross wholly:
a mind devoured by fears.
The above taken directly from the online dictionary, because I can’t get Margaret’s prompt out of my head! To devour certainly describes most aptly, exactly what I’ve been doing with what has possibly been our best ever fig crop! I have devoured hungrily, recklessly, wantonly and greedily (as well as shared enough for others to do the same!) over the past weeks and I cannot think why I didn’t use the word earlier! Thank you Margaret for your regular correspondence! The devouring of a fig will be top of mind in association with these late summer fruit forevermore! I can’t think what word I did use now!
Which brings me to:
Productive garden notes:
Eating from the garden:
Potatoes, onions, garlic, cucumbers, aubergines, zucchinis, tomatoes, coloured chard and spinach, lettuce, rocket. Figs! Jelly Wine Palm fruits. Basil, lovage, mint, rosemary, thyme, chives. Beans…a handful!
Going / gone: the figs hit peak harvest the week before last, and although I picked another colander full yesterday (including the one I’m mid-devouring in the image above!), there are not many more on the tree… and corn
Seed saving: parsnip, beetroot, spinach, chard, parsley, land cress
Sowing: it’s more a question of what’s self-sowing…fennel, parsley, land cress but still a bit too early here to sow on purpose
Planting: brassicas (kale, cavolo nero, cabbage, broccoli, kohl rabi, cauliflower), lettuce and fennel (bulbing) seedlings. I picked up a few Bok Choy seedlings too - I love when they do grow but they seem to be temperamental here, so…I’ll have another go as we do love to eat them!
Ornamental garden notes:
Picking for the house: Roses, frangipanis, tansy, dahlias, Cottonwood hibiscus, amaranth, ginger
Perfumes and aromas: Still the frangipani, magnolia, rose and fig…the evening and early morning hint of Nicotiana in the kitchen garden, the pungent tansy and dusty, drying fennel abound and these last days, the Cistus ladanifer has been pumping out its resinous odour once again
Pruning and other: a great deal of weeding by Thalia! On Saturday Matt, who comes here intermittently to run his hedge trimmer over the Photinia, Oleander, Murraya and the Cherokee Rose came to visit - my had they all gone bonkers in the stormy weather! His efforts should halt them in their tracks for a moment - I hope! My time at the weekend was truly taken up with early crop rotation…even weedling out just enough compost from the not-yet-quite-cooked heap to get me through! Hoping for a final turn this coming Sunday…
Thank you Marilou 😊 And it looks as if the rain has arrived just in time to set your mind at rest while you go on an adventure! Enjoy your travels. Mx
I continue to be amazed by you and your wealth of knowledge and kindness to share your experiences in your beautiful garden. I devour your posts and continually absorb and enjoy following your adventures. Thank you, Mickey 😊🌻