The nearest decent music shop is forty miles from my home. An eighty mile round trip - two hours driving - with petrol at £1.31 a litre, would make for an expensive, time-consuming set of strings (always assuming that they have the strings I want in stock, which is by no means guaranteed).

I buy strings, half a dozen sets at a time, on-line from Strings Direct, free postage for orders over £50. It’s a no-brainer in my circumstances.