IT happened just as Mrs D was raising a cup of cappuccino to her lips in a street cafe in Majorca.
Out of the blue a two-coach tram rattled past, not more than 18inches from her left elbow.
There had been no warning except a Parp Parp sound like the ones you hear in children's TV programmes such as Noddy or Magic Roundabout.
We hadn't notice
d the single track tramline that snakes its way through the centre of the little town of Soller on the island's north coast, right between the cafes.
I remember it because at that moment I was reading in my British newspaper how some parish councillors in England vainly tried to get their council to remove some rubbish from a stream.
They did it themselves after having been told the council had no one qualified to wear Wellington boots.
Or was it the one about the goalposts in Macclesfield having to be removed from a football pitch for fear someone would run into them?
Or – hang on a minute, there were so many stories like that that fortnight – it could have been the one about the old boys banned from playing whist in their sheltered housing room.
They couldn't stump up the insurance demanded by that duo determined to squeeze the life and soul out of Britain, Elf n Safety.
"Oh," said Mrs D, as the tram rattled her coffee cup. "That was fun."
"Thank goodness Elf n Safety didn't see it," I said, turning the page.
That little scene in Majorca wouldn't have lasted a minute in England.
The area would have been swarming with safety inspectors in fluorescent yellow jackets closing the place down.
Yet minutes before the tram arrived small children had been scampering over the lines.
When it passed there were no tiny corpses littering the track. Life continued as before.
Spain and Britain are in the same European Union with the same laws, yet we seem to be at the mercy of twits who can't use their common sense.
There are those who go bonkers over conkers and worry about them falling on people's heads, or schoolteachers who ban tag in school playgrounds for fear of kids getting a bruised knee.
Or Elf n Safety inspectors who ban windowboxes which might fall down, meatballs taken off school menus in case children choke and teachers rapped for taking pupils on a picnic without a risk assessment.
Britain is becoming a laughing stock to the rest of the world.
Remember the centuries old pancake race at Ripon cancelled because Elf n Safety and insurance made it too expensive and time consuming to fill out all the forms?
Or the Post Office which said its posties could no longer deliver mail to the tiny hamlet of Booze in the Yorkshire Dales because the road was too narrow and steep, it might strain the postman's back or his van might clip a wall?
Friends, Mrs D and I have climbed this self same road (we wanted to see if Booze had a pub – it doesn't) and we lived to tell the tale.
It was only the universal ridicule which greeted this decision which made the Royal Mail reverse it – partially.
You could see it coming, the moment Royal Mail put some twit with a clipboard on the case. If you ask someone to find a problem they'll find it.
I'm not arguing against rules and regulations – although I thought it a bit strong when I paid more for the scaffolding than for painting the outside of Dawes Towers – but what is needed is for them to be applied with a healthy dose of common sense.
Thank goodness the blighters weren't around at Trafalgar. They wouldn't have allowed the battle to start.
And if they were, Nelson would have put his telescope to his blind eye and said: "I see no Elf n Safety."
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