After a successful week at the CEPIC conference we treated ourselves to a week’s holiday with a couple of friends in rural Catalonia. The sun shone, it was warm, we were staying in a gorgeous place, everything was tickety-boo. But that was out in the country.

Before we went, everyone we spoke to warned us of the street crime in Barcelona. I mean everyone. We’ve been to Barcelona four or five times in the past, and it is an enchanting city — astounding architecture, great food, wonderful wine — and we had never had any trouble.

This time it was different. Just tiny little things to begin with: we were coming back from a CEPIC dinner at 00:15 and had to walk for 100 metres down the Ramblas, notorious for petty crime. A man stepped out in front of us waving a banknote, asking for change. Even I’m not dumb enough to fall for that one after midnight so I just strode on. He jabbed me in the shoulder three or four times to get my attention but frankly I had better things to do than to discuss financial matters with a threatening stranger in the night.

Then one afternoon I found myself nursing a Marguerita outside a bar in the Barri Gotic. A less than reputable-looking man dropped into the seat next to me, reached out and rather bizarrely began shaking my leg. “NO TOCAR!” I bellowed, much to the shock of the five young English girls at the next table. He scuttled off.

The third intrusion came as we were walking down the steps into the Metro. Hot, wet and sweet. Someone had thrown a cup of hot chocolate over us, over my beautiful cream linen suit jacket. The man coming down the steps behind us was horrified. Luckily he had a bottle of water in his hand and offered to help us clean off the mess. But our friends James & Jill had already warned us of that little trick, and we got away from our light-fingered Samaritan as quickly as possible.

Safely on to the airport train at Barcelona-Sants, and we half-breathed a sigh of relief. We inspected the chocolate stains all over my lovely jacket, decided it was best to let them dry out before trying to brush it down. I put it on the overhead rack. We checked it periodically.  At Bellvitge station, the last but one before the Aeroport, we realised we would not be able to take bottles of Coke through security, so we transferred them from our suitcases to my rucksack so we could finish them off in the departure lounge. As we were doing this, the train stopped at El Prat de Lobregat, Yvonne looked up and spotted the jacket had gone. I rushed to the door but couldn’t see anyone making off with it.

The jacket was part of the suit I wore at my wedding, hand-made to measure in Thailand for me out of cream linen. It was beautiful, comfortable and warm — too warm for Barcelona, which is why it was on the overhead rack. The bastards.

At the airport I went in search of the police. I pressed an Information button, but the woman at the other end said they only gave information to disabled people. Then I asked at a check-in desk. Three people stared at me blankly. ‘Police? Polizia? Polis? Polizei? Gendarmes? Heddlu?’

‘Ah!’ recognition dawned in their eyes. ‘Mossas!’ Silly me.

I found the Mossas de Squadra, and within ten minutes I was relating my incident. He was as sympathetic as a policeman is allowed to be, and painfully typed out his one-fingered report. Why aren’t the police taught how to type? It would save thousands of man-hours. As he handed me his report, he waved his finger at me sternly. ‘Remember it could never have been a Spaniard who did this thing to you! It must have been a Moroccan. Or a Romanian.’ I wonder if the British police are permitted to speculate in such a way.

What a nasty finale to a terrific two weeks. The CEPIC Conference was fascinating, exciting, useful, invigorating and I hope it will turn out to be profitable. The subsequent holiday had been full of good wine, good company, good food and good weather. It was like breaking eggs into a bowl, only to find the last one is rotten. Everything was spoilt.

At least I’ve been saved a dry-cleaning bill.