brown & white

Work trip to Pingelly again yesterday. Pingelly is nice, I've said that before. About an hour and a half out of Perth, nice buildings, lots of trees. I think it has a bit of character because its on a little hill, when most of WA is flat as a board, and its managed to hang on to lots of its older buildings, pubs, banks, shops, cottages etc. Lucky for it, it appears not to have gone through any booms in the 60s and 70s so has avoided having its older buildings replaced by new, naff, ones.

I like the font in this signage, it reminds me of a certain world-dominating soft drink brand. I expect at some time this sign read "Pingelly Butchers" or whatever this shop is, as opposed to just telling you where you are. Even though its looking a bit tatty, I hope they leave it as it is.

H.

pink, orange & yellow

Things are pretty colourful around my place, as you've no doubt guessed. Here's a few scenes from the spare room, as I was cleaning it out yesterday: a box of bracelets and bits, a set of folders (from some very organized point in my life), some new linen, and a bag in the shape of a radio that I bought in New York next to a lamp that was my mum's in the 70s (or 60s even?).

I used to carry my cd walkman, my discman, and a folder with 20 or so cds in that radio bag when I was travelling - carrying around a cd player and 20 cds! Can you believe it? Hilarious! You can't see it in the photo but it has all these little plastic dials, volume etc. So I'd have the cd player in the bag, with the headphones coming out, and I'd walk around carrying that little bag with the antenna on top, playing music out of it. As well as all the other junk I'd be carrying - cameras, backpack etc. I must have looked pretty funny.

H.

yellow & blue

Here's Elvis on top of some op shop books. Perth peeps, enjoy your day off tomorrow and the insanely great weather. Everyone else, sorry its work for you... hugs...

H.

pink & blue

So I had a huge clean out of the spare room today. Just because its spring, and its a long weekend here so I had a bit of time. Chucked some old stuff out, hid more of it under the bed, hung some pictures up properly that had just been propped up for ages, that type of stuff. It took ages and I ran out of time to clean out the wardrobe in there, which over the years has become totally jam packed with spare clothes - some vintage that I have collected, some just old things I don't wear but don't want to get rid of, some things I think maybe one day will fit again or might come back into fashion... hey, it happens...! That's going to be a massive job when I get round to it. Some things, its just time for them to go, and I'm feeling that way about the stuff in that wardrobe.

I kind of wanted the spare room to be a bit more usable (rather than just a depository of stuff) so I set up the spare bed with a proper mattress and some new sheets etc. Part of that deal meant these cushions had to go. I still like them, but I have just looked at them for too many years and am sick of them. And they take up a heap of space. So they are all stashed away now.

Found my year 7 year book under the bed, it made me laugh. For ambition I wrote "not sure" and for hobby I wrote "sticker collecting". I don't specifically recall collecting stickers, but I have always been a collector of something. As my mum (and my spare room) will testify, since I was little I have always just hung on to stuff, or picked a thing and collected that thing for ages, then got over it. I've found op shops have become really crap lately, so I'm not really collecting anything at the moment. I used to want to work in a museum so I could collect stuff for a living, but found you can't really collect stuff just because it looks good, it has to have all these layers of meaning and somehow fit into the story of the nation or whatever, yawn.

Anyway, my house is my museum! Just gotta clean it out every now and again...

H.

silver & gold

Thanks to everyone who commented yesterday, and emails and things. Very nice of you all.

This weekend is a long weekend, and I'm very ready for it. Got lots to do. Its all spring-y in these parts, so I'm looking forward to some spring cleaning. Speaking of which, don't look to closely at the photos coz I haven't dusted in ages. Luckily its all out of focus.

H.

the colour H turns one!

Today is a bit of a milestone... its one year since my first post on The Colour H. How quickly a year goes... I started this blog as an outlet, just somewhere to put my pictures instead of saving them on my computer and no-one else seeing them. I said all along it was just for me really, and I would do it anyway even if no-one else looked. I don't have a stat counter so I have no idea how many people do look, but there is a little handful of you, and that makes me feel good - so thanks to you! I like it when people come up to me and say "I liked your picture of..." or when they post a comment. Sometimes it goes all quiet and then I go back to "well, I'm just doing it for me" and that's ok too.

Sometimes I think this blog looks totally shoddy and amateur, and other times I think I could love it to death, but something I do know for sure is that I want to keep doing it. I realized this when I crashed it a few weeks ago and all the pictures disappeared. Holy crap! I tried to stay really calm and think calm thoughts that it didn't really matter, but it kind of made me realize it did matter! I like that it is building up a record, of me, of Perth, of... stuff... and I want to keep adding to it.

Anyway, if you are out there - thanks for looking!

H.

blue, silver & grey

I've mentioned before how great I think this building is going to look, and how much I love it, so I won't go on again (its the new state theatre at the corner of Roe and William streets). Since I took this photo about a week ago, they have been painting the giant silver metal bit white. There's gold-y bits too, on the Roe St side, but I haven't been able to get them to look as great in a photo as they do in real life. Can't wait for it to be finished, and for all those little shops near it to be filled and re-opened.

H.

white

"...and god said, let there be tiny pencils, and disposable tape measures... and ye shall transcribe the numbers from the tag, and go help yourself at the end of the shop... and all was right with the world"

I took an unscheduled trip to ikea yesterday, where i found this vignette of love, hate and tiny tape measures at the checkout. Usually a trip to ikea is something I like to plan, and preferably take a day off work so I can go on a day when there is only half a million people there, not the full million. But on account of the spring mattress at Super crAp-Mart stabbing me in the knee when I tested it out, I made a detour to ikea, given I had borrowed a friend's ute and was half way there anyway.

I always get disoriented and slightly panicked in there. I go excited because I've seen all the nice things in the catalogue but then I can't find the nice things from the catalogue. They seem to be perpetually out of the size, colour or shape I had in mind, then I get annoyed, then I start to feel trapped and like I've been walking in circles for hours, and may never be able to grope my way through the maze of funny shaped bathroom mats and poster prints of the Brooklyn Bridge to the frozen meatball place at the end.

I can never tell if I'm upstairs or downstairs, and my brain oscillates between "ooh that's so shiny and nice..." and "holy crap I am trapped in hell..." to the point I can't shop very well, and tend to come away without whatever I went there for or with something I don't really need.

I don't understand why there can only be one ikea, so everyone from bloody Joondalup to Mandurah has to cram in there on a Saturday. But I do like its comforting efficiency, and actually do like most of their stuff. I find the thought of ikea stuff very calming and predictable, but the experience of going there manic and chaotic. I think I will always be prepared to go there again, unlike Super crAp-Mart which was so crap in so many ways I will never bother again.

H.

brown

jobs for girls: you wear bikini, lingerie, skimpy. "if nudity offends do not apply". well, der. seen on william street.

H.

blue & brown

noticed on the weekend they are taking down the boards that have been up around what used to be the arcane bookshop while it was being renovated. found they have them all stashed in this little depot place at the back. i hope they get a good home, they were awesome.

hope you had a good weekend, and the work week ahead treats you well.

H.

white

a giant B. got no idea what it means. note the tin ceiling of the awning though, hopefully undergoing repairs. william street.

white & pink

thanks so much to the lovely shop-man at the butcher shop, for letting me take pictures of the spray cans. their window display is just exploding with pink stuff.

H.

blue & purple

freshly sprayed:



they've resprayed the wall outside bar 399, so recently this little weed is still alive! great colours.

pink

if you are in perth, you can still get down to william street and collect your magnets as part of the popsicle event. i went on friday, it was great. people are so friendly, and they have nice shops selling lovely things. i scrounged 12 sean morris magnets - missed out on 5, rats!

also, thanks so much to the lovely lauren carney for her sweet comments. have a look at her ace drawings here. i loved her fathers day album: "coke cans are not ashtrays" - gold!

H.

pink

i bought this bag today, oh lust lust lust! it was from a place called siam temple on william street. i've been eyeing off their stuff for a while but none of their bags have been big enough for all the bloody junk i cart around, but they had a lot of new stock so i indulged in this one.



i was in northbridge today to check out the popsicle thing. Perth peeps go and have a look over the weekend, it was ace. get your sean morris magnets! i will post pics soon, right now i have to prepare for freo to do battle with geelong. good luck boys.

H.

red & black

here we are watching the game last weekend. only a few weekends of the season left, one of the very few things i'll miss about winter.

blue & white

i'm not really a beach-y person, but i can appreciate how astounding it is that in perth we have these amamzing places to go, just up the road, pristine, clean, free. took these last week. its spring here, summer is on its way, i love it. check out the seagull - was playing around with shutter speed settings on the new camera, was very pleased.

H.

blue & white

here's just a few scenes from bencubbin, where everything was painted the same colour blue. it was kind of pretty! it might be kind of boring, but i feel the middle picture here sums up the trip. whatever it is or was, it's closed basicially. its just kind of a remnant of something else. maybe it still has a function, i don't know. the locals would know. the pub (last pub for 203kms) was closed too, but it was a really nice building. a little worn down, but with some really good features.

H.

white

at the place where we had the meeting, they brought us scones! home-made, with home-made jam i reckon. score!

white & black

these were taken in wyalkatchem. i'd been so excited to go there, the place with the strange name. but there's not much there at all. this shed/shop had some interesting shapes to it. i did some editing of the colour and contrast of these, which i hardly ever do. hope its not too weird.

H.