Those who follow my elder son's career, may know that he's having problems meeting the demand for his new CDs. So, in an effort to help, I offered to distribute some of those left over from my recent retailing responsibilities to buyers in the UK (and, perhaps, Europe).

Somewhat naively, however, I had overlooked the fact that the attraction of buying directly from Lloyd is that he signs the CDs. Accordingly, it was decided that I should send him some of the ones I had and, towards the end of last week, I made up a couple of parcels and took them to the local Post Office - where a very nice lady explained that the postage for the two parcels (with a combined weight of around 6.8 kilos) to the USA would be in the region of £100.00.

I was flabber-smacked !

Reeling slightly from the shock, I moved to a quiet corner and telephoned Lloyd. Who could imagine, not that many years ago, the concept of using a little gadget the size of a box of Swan Vestas to speak to someone in the USA ? Anyway, we decided I should return home to search the internet for other options.

Interestingly, it seems that most international couriers would charge around the same as the Post Office. However, closer examination of the Royal Mail web-site revealed that a single parcel, weighing less than 2 kilos, would only cost around £20.00.

So, armed with this information, I called Lloyd again and he decided that, notwithstanding the fact that his margin of profit for these particular CDs will be practically zero, he would prefer for them to be where he can sign them and that I should go ahead and re-pack the parcels.

Over the weekend, having invested in some new (and what I thought were very reasonably-priced) scales, I set about re-parcelling the CDs in readiness for another trip to the Post Office on Monday. Well, that was the plan; however, the weather gods  conspired to prevent me from getting to the Post Office until today (Wednesday) and, as I write, three carefully-packed parcels should be on their way across the pond.

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