On my last visit to Amsterdam I sat drinking beer by a bridge over a canal, as one does, on a day so windy we had to hold our glasses to stop them being blown over. The wind even managed to pick up a menu (no mean feat considering the heavy covers and fake-leather binding) and send it into the water.

In Amsterdam the canalside is a vertical drop of two metres or so, and the menu landed well out towards the middle of the canal. A little later, though, I noticed the wind bringing it back to shore a bit further from the bridge: within reach from the first of the boats moored against the side. “Be right back,” I said to Tom, and leapt up to do my good deed for the day.

The boat turned out to be full of water, so I had to balance on its edge then stretch myself bridge-like between toes on the seat and breastbone on the prow to reach out into the water and… Got it! I scrambled, triumphant and only slightly dampened at the cuffs, back up to our table. “Reckon that’s worth a beer?” I asked Tom; he looked sceptical, which I didn’t let damage my optimism.

When the waitress next made her rounds, we ordered two more beers then I pointed to the menu. “I fished this out of the canal for you, you should probably take it inside and give it a drying off.” She looked somewhat nonplussed: “Out of the canal? How?” I waved airily at the boats. “Oh you know, I saw it blowing by and jumped in a boat to catch it. Is that worth a beer, do you think?”

This took her completely by surprise: she burst out laughing. (That, in turn, took me completely by surprise. I goggled at her.) “I’ll have to check with the boss,” she said.

One beer arrived with a different waitress, who didn’t ask us to pay: definitely promising, I thought. But then came our waitress with a second beer and a sorry expression. “The boss said she doesn’t think it’s worth €3,40 for a menu they can’t use any more”, she said, “but here are some nuts on the house.”

I looked at the bowl of peanuts. It was a very small bowl of peanuts.

The waitress followed up with “That’s a half hour’s work for me, you know,” and I goggled some more, then paid for the beers without arguing the point.