I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I missed the turning for Alleyrat by a good three miles, only realising my mistake when I found myself staring at a field of very confused-looking Limousin cattle who seemed to be wondering what this sweating British man in a Vauxhall was doing in their lunchtime. The sat nav had given up on me somewhere near Brive-la-Gaillarde, and my schoolboy French was already failing me at the first hurdle of asking a local farmer for directions. He was terribly kind though, and I understood enough to gather I needed to "tourner a gauche at the big tree" which, in rural Limousin, describes approximately every second landmark.

By the time I rattled down the proper lane to the stone cottage, I was ravenous and slightly delirious. The property sat there like something from a postcard, all honey-coloured granite and shuttered windows, with a proper old well in the garden and a barbecue that looked like it had seen some serious action over the decades. I dumped my bags with the enthusiasm of a man who had been surviving on service station sandwiches since Calais, and immediately set about investigating the kitchen.

This, I decided within minutes, was where I would be spending most of my waking hours. The kitchen had that satisfying heft of somewhere actually cooked in, not merely styled for photographs. Heavy pans, a proper gas hob, and a fridge that hummed contentedly in the corner like a satisfied cat. I had grand plans, you see. I had brought a notebook of recipes. I had watched far too many French cooking programmes during lockdown. I was going to become, for one week, the sort of person who casually throws together a cassoulet while discussing the terroir with neighbours.

My first evening, I walked the mile or so into the nearest village, which consisted of a bar-tabac, a bakery that had already closed, and a small epicerie where I bought some local beer and what I believed were cooking sausages. The barman at the tabac spoke no English and I speak French like a toddler, but we managed to establish that I was "Anglais" and "tres faim" and he produced a plate of rillettes with bread that saved my life. I sat there with my beer and my pork fat, watching the village go by, and felt genuinely pleased with myself. This was the France I wanted. Unpretentious, slightly scruffy, delicious.

The next morning I woke with my culinary ambitions renewed and marched to the weekly market at a slightly larger village nearby. This was where I came properly unstuck. I had intended to buy ingredients for a traditional Limousin potato dish, but became overwhelmed by the stalls of local producers and ended up with a wheel of goat's cheese, some unidentifiable greens, a chicken that still had its feet attached, and three bottles of wine because an elderly woman insisted I try her husband's vin de noix. I also bought a jar of something preserved that I still cannot identify but tastes faintly of walnuts and regret.

Back at the cottage, my first attempt at proper local cooking was an unmitigated disaster. The chicken and I had fundamental disagreements about preparation. The greens turned out to be some variety of bitter chicory that fought back against my butter. Only the wine was unconditionally successful, and I drank rather a lot of it while staring at my failure. There is something deeply humbling about being alone in a foreign kitchen with a plate of food even you will not eat. I ended up walking back to the tabac for emergency chips, which the barman served without comment but with what I detected as a certain knowing sympathy.

By day three I had lowered my ambitions and raised my research. I found that the Limousin region does simple things magnificently, and that my attempts at complexity were missing the point entirely. I started buying the cured meats and just arranging them with bread and cheese. I discovered that local markets sold prepared dishes from farmhouse kitchens, elderly women selling their own terrines and confits in reused jars. I became a regular at the bakery, arriving early enough to get the proper croissants, and developed a small ritual of coffee and pastry before market browsing.

The barbecue, I eventually learned, was my true ally. Local butchers sold marinated cuts ready for the grill, and I achieved my greatest success with a piece of Limousin beef that needed nothing more than fire, salt, and patience. I ate it with market tomatoes and bread and the local beer, sitting in the garden as the evening cooled, and felt genuinely accomplished in a way my failed cassoulet never provided.

I did venture to a proper restaurant one evening, a family-run place in a nearby town, where I ate a veal stew that made me want to weep with its simplicity. The owner came to talk to me, somehow understanding my terrible French well enough to explain that his mother made the stock, his wife prepared the vegetables, and he watched the pot. Three generations in one dish. I thought about my own failed attempts at grandeur and understood something I had not before.

By the end of the week, my notebook of recipes was largely ignored but my stomach was profoundly satisfied. I had learned to buy what looked good and cook it simply, to ask stallholders for advice even when communication was half-gesture, and to accept that some evenings chips at the tabac were exactly what I needed. The cottage kitchen had become familiar, the markets a pleasure rather than an intimidation, and I left with a jar of that unidentified preserve and a determination to return with better French and lower expectations of myself.

The cattle, I noted on my finally-correct drive away, still looked unimpressed. But I was leaving Limousin genuinely fed in every sense, with a belly full of good food and a head full of better understanding. Some holidays teach you about places. This one, rather unexpectedly, taught me about my own limitations and the particular joy of working within them.