We love Amazon – items are delivered with speed, even to sparsely populated Radnorshire.  As you’ll know, virtually anything can be bought, and their USP is of course that anything can be returned – so we did.

Perfect option is drop off with Hermes – “click”, job done!  “Where is Hermes drop-off?”. Turns out that the nearest shop is in Llanidloes which is 16 miles away, and 16 miles back of course.  That’s OK, one down side of living here where anywhere you want to go is at least an hour away – even a loo seat (hence Amazon!).  The views, the scenery, the weather, the quality of life and the empty roads all compensate. So we put it off until one of us takes the decision to do it.

To make it Cost effective we decided to take George the greyhound to the Vet. Go to the Vets at Crossgates, north of Llandrindod, through Rhayader and on to Llanidloes. New readers begin here- George suffered a broken leg as a young puppy, which was repaired badly in Ireland, and which had to be broken and re-mended in the UK. At this point (18 months old) we enter his life. His broken leg metalwork was rubbing through his skin, and the Vet warned us that it needed repairing.  And now it has broken through, we can take him for a pre-op appraisal.

We decided to take both dogs to avoid Rosie’s distress at him being missing.  It’s a plan!  First though we need fuel so we top up on the way – £95.00.  George needed a course of anti-biotics and a course of vitamins- cost £83.00.

On the way Sandie spots a sheep on its back (potentially fatal), we can’t stop so we’ve got to come back this way to rescue it. 

We arrive at Llanidloes but where is the drop off shop?  Three times round the town before we use the phone sat nav, and Bingo!  Apparently we were looking for a shop, but it’s a garage/filling station.  Two minutes and all done – These free returns really are easy.

Now we head forback home via the upside down sheep – which had vanished!  Hey Ho!

As a reward we come back via Gilfach nature reserve to stretch the legs as a reward to the dogs.

These free returns really are a boon! But, can we say travelling that distance at that cost really is a free return? We’ve learned over time to employ a rigorous cost/benefit analysis which guides us through life’s tough decisions. Spreadsheets are employed, slide rules are extended and glasses put on, beans are double counted and the final analysis algorithm is brought in to play – Man maths (invented by Cap’n Slow – aka James May to justify buying a new car).

Work out what you want, then think of the reasons for so doing – works every time! And what a beautiful, interesting, invigorating way of returning things to Amazon.