bengy

A post to collect some of my writings, I will periodically update and add in new stuff!

Unsplash Thank goodness... the relief when the tax return is completed and lodged! It was (again...) right down to the wire, with a day left before the submission deadline.... well, not quite a hard deadline,

I've been pretty heads down in preparing our tax return over the last few weeks, and my wife is slowly melting down under the stress of doing too many university student recitals (hopefully a lesson that

Unsplash Ahhhh... a weekend away, and a few moments to tidy up some little amounts that I had put on various Ethereum mainnet to L2 bridges.... and gas fees are pretty damn low at the moment, at around

In keeping with my soon-to-be old man vibe... I do have the occasional potter around the garden to see what needs to be done, and just to poke around and mutter to myself. With the fast growing season

Unsplash YAY, YAY, YAY! Our ensemble has always has a grant application or two in for various funding and philanthropic bodies throughout the year. Mostly, we treat them as accelerators for what we are

Okay, I've probably hit old age now... where I get super excited about new garden tools! During the recent Amazon Prime sales, I was hunting around for some presents for nieces and nephews and to do the

Ahhh... the joys of preparing tax returns in a Capital Gains regime when you hold even the smallest amount of crypto. Honestly, there will need to be an updating of tax reporting for these things, as they

Not so long ago, I had hit a little snag in my instrument allocation for various concerts... now, I'm primarily an Early Music specialist, and that means that I have multiple violins (and violas/d'amore)

A nice batch of rain followed by a healthy dose of sun has meant that our fledgling veggie garden has taken off quickly even though we were away for a week! I was a bit worried that the the heat of the

Haha... at this point, it is becoming more and more clear that banks and their legacy infrastructure belongs in the pen and paper era. Sure, they have "updated" to have digital front facing user

As a freelance musician, when it gets busy... it gets stupidly busy... as a pair of freelance musicians with two young kids... well, when BOTH of us get busy, it goes completely nuts. My wife and I have

Bah... nothing is more annoying that opening up the case, hoping to fit in a quick half hour of practice before a student arrives in an otherwise packed day/week/month to see that one of the strings of

The period before moving back to Australia was a bit of a chaotic period... lots of things to be prepared for the move, plus the house sale, plus just keeping regular life goinguntil the very last week...

Well.. not quite, but ran out of decent violins to use this week! Sure, I probably could have gotten away with using a crappy factory violin for the symphony orchestra, but it is pretty unprofessional,

Unsplash Bah... the thing that I hate about getting older is the body sort of having these aches and pains that weren't there a decade or two ago. In my mind, I'm still feeling younger... but as I get

In Australia, we are one of the few countries in the world where voting is compulsory... or you get a small fine. Well, voting isn't really compulsory (more on that later..), with the paper ballots you

Manuka is a pretty popular cae and restaurant area in Canberra. Near to the public service areas and Parliament House,

This is an Italian themed restaurant in the very popular Darling Harbour area. My daughter had been here on a previous

The Blue Mountains is an area to the west of Sydney that is has some really amazing views.... and Scenic World caters

When I'm with my mother, she always seems to know the best places to have Yum Cha. And for those of you who don't know