WHEN Annabel Townsend worked high up in the Andes as a gap year student, she fell in love with Peru. The love affair continues. So much so that Annabel, now studying for her master's degree at the University of Durham, has just started Cyberllama, an online business selling Peruvian jewellery and knitwear.

"I went out there for six months to a place called Huancayo, which is seven hours from Lima and so far above sea level that it made breathing hard until you got used to it. I stayed with a family there and we all got on so well that they became like another family to me. We were as close as sisters."

Annabel, from Kent, came back, did her first degree at Durham, married and moved to Darlington, but made more trips to Peru. Including one "right up the Amazon, five days in a little boat where we slept in hammocks".

Huancayo is famous for the number of craftsmen working there, selling their work in local markets. "I'd already brought so much back from there and had people comment on it and like it, that when I was looking for a business idea, this seemed the obvious choice," says Annabel.

Now the house in Darlington is even more crammed with llama wool hats, alpaca scarves, lapis lazuli jewellery...

"Carl and I were there this summer and since we've come back, Ally, my adopted sister, has bought things from the little craft markets and shipped them out to us. Everything is individually made, so is unique. We know where everything comes from, the name of the people who made it, all about them.

"We also don't haggle over the price. We pay the makers a decent price so they know where they are and we can build a friendly business relationship."

Carl, who also knows Peru well, helped design the website. "Division of labour means if I make all the telephone calls to Peru, then he can sort out computer problems," says Annabel.

If, as promised, we're in for a hard winter, then Cyberllama could be just what we need. Lots of woolly jumpers, some llama wool hats in Peruvian style - coming down snugly over your ears to keep them warm - at £8.99; cheerful wool hats for £4.99, beautifully soft alpaca scarves in a whole range of colours, a snip for £9; soft alpaca jumpers at £35.

Annabel's favourite is the jewellery. Lots of bracelets, necklaces, earrings with silver, tiger's eye, jasper, looking amazingly stylish and under £15.

At £4.50 there are also some very jolly droplet earrings, in vivid pinks and purples that turn out to be the painted scales of the paiche fish that lives in the Amazon.

"As the business grows we'll be bringing in a wider range of goods. For instance, there are some lovely chess sets with Incas v Conquistadors that we hope to have."

As well as the Internet business, Annabel will have a stall at various fairs in the area between now and Christmas and is also planning a stall on Darlington market.

It will be called - wait for it - Darlo Llama.

www.cyberllama.co.uk

Taxing times

HAVE you seen that advert with Adam Hart Davis telling you that doing your tax return needn't be taxing? Well, it's a lie.

For the first time in years, I'm doing my tax return myself. I'm not dim. I have a degree. I can do the Times crossword and understand knitting patterns. So if A H-D is to be believed, a tax return is a doddle. Ha!

I know how much I've earned, and I know how much I've spent earning it. Taking one from the other is a pretty easy sum, even for me. But the Inland Revenue doesn't do anything as straightforward as easy sums. It has a language all of its own and somewhere between Disallowable Expenses and Balancing Charges, I got hopelessly lost.

Who writes these things? Probably the same person who does the assembly instructions for MFI wardrobes.

A H-D - and I'll never trust that man again - also said it was easy to do it all online. Ha! Again.

You have to have an ID number and a password, apply and wait a week for a pin number and then after all that, This Web Page Is Unavailable. Stalemate.

The website told me to ring the helpline, the helpline told me to consult the website. Both told me to consult my local office - but they're not in the phone book because no-one wants you to know where they are. Oh yes, there is an address - but that's in Cardiff.

It gets more like Alice in Wonderland every day.

Finally, sobbing quietly, I tracked down the Inland Revenue office in Darlington - in Commercial Street, just by the car parks - and threw myself on their mercy.

Cath and Liz were brilliant. Clearly quite accustomed to wild-eyed people with folders full of forms and scraps of paper stumbling over their threshold, they romped briskly through the form, told me which bits to fill in, which bits to ignore and sent me out happily into the rain again.

I still don't know what a balancing charge is, but at least I've sent the blessed form in. And if anyone else out there is struggling - and today's the last day if you want the Revenue to do the self assessment sums for you - then Cath and Liz are the people to see.