IT’S nice, isn’t it, to be right? And especially so in front of those who, hours earlier, had laughed at you – as happened to me while staying with friends in Germany last week.

Parents to two young boys, I’d agreed to meet the couple one morning at a decidedly chic bar that was a favourite among the well-to-do ‘set’ of young, trendy Dusseldorf mums, keen to still prove themselves fanciable while hubby was away earning – hopefully- millions at the office.

The reason I hadn’t just joined them at the bistro to begin with was that I had an errand to run: I wanted to go ‘fishing’ that afternoon.

They live close to a small river and the afternoon before I’d spotted some life in it.

So off I went that following morning in search of the appropriate gear, which in my case meant a child’s fishing net (five euros) and a Cap’n Sharky pirate bucket (four euros).

I’m not an angler, used to hanging out in isolated beauty spots with only a pair of ex-Army combat trousers and a mean looking box of hooks to keep me company. No. I just like messing about in the water.

So, having successfully ‘sourced’ my equipment, I turned up chuffed as you like at said bar where, almost immediately, my purchases signalled a ‘feeding frenzy’ of smart alec remarks among the beautiful and betrothed (trust me, despite the myth, Germans can be both funny and quick).

Suffice to say, 30 minutes later, their barbs and crueIly wounding witticisms had left me feeling – ironically, when you think about it – like the worm wriggling for its life on the end of the angler’s hook.

But, and here’s the payback, over lunch while I stood stooped and focused in the river at the end of their road, my friends’ children couldn’t help but nag their mum and dad to join me. And these are boys, five and eight, brought up earnestly on Playstation and Wii.

Fed up, they later admitted, with fending off their sons’ pleas, the whole family finally turned up with their own buckets (domestic rather than wistful) and nets (deep sea trawler-like to my more modest rock pool variety).

Still, despite the unfair competition, the next few hours sailed by as, one by one, we all netted our catches, ‘ooohed’ as we did so, pointed and named (not technically, like ‘Minnowus Carp Adiem’ but affectionately as in ‘Boris’ and ‘Hildegard’) before waving goodbye to our new found friends released back into the river.

It was, quite simply, as satisfying an afternoon as I care to remember, yet the best was still to come.

Apparently, while putting her sons to bed, the boys told their mum it was the best afternoon they could remember and she then phoned her friends to pass on this ground-breaking revelation. Meaning next day, at the well-heeled Mother’s Group, I suddenly found myself the overnight sensation. And, oh yeah, of course I milked it!