I should have known the holiday was going to be eventful when I got my first taste of Schleswig-Holstein from the floor of a petrol station toilet. Not eating anything from there, mind you - just recovering from a spectacular bout of motion sickness on the winding roads from Hamburg. My partner Dave had insisted on taking the scenic route, and I had insisted on a large breakfast at the airport Wetherspoons. Neither decision aged well.

Three hours and one very quiet car journey later, we finally pulled into Ostseeresort Olpenitz, and I have to say, the place immediately started healing me. Our holiday home had one of those kitchens that makes you want to cook properly - big island counter, proper gas hob, and a view of the marina that almost made me forget I'd spent twenty minutes hugging a porcelain bowl in Schleswig.

Almost.

We'd done a shop at a Netto in Kappeln on the way, which is where my first cooking delusion took hold. "Fresh fish," I announced, loading up on herring and some local shrimp. "We'll eat like the locals." Dave, who knows me too well, simply raised an eyebrow and bought extra bread.

That first evening, I attempted what I can only describe as a "Frisian-inspired seafood platter." The herring was fine. The shrimp were fine. My attempt at a remoulade sauce was not fine. It split spectacularly, looking like something that had already been eaten once. Dave diplomatically suggested we walk down to the resort's own little restaurant area, where I demolished a proper fish sandwich while quietly reflecting that perhaps thirty-seven years on this earth had not been sufficient to master emulsification.

The next morning, I found my true calling at the Kappeln weekly market. This was proper stuff - stalls of smoked fish, local cheeses, those enormous German pretzels that require serious jaw commitment. I bought a wheel of Tilsiter that smelled like feet in the most wonderful way, and some smoked eel that the vendor wrapped in paper like a precious gift. Dave got chatting with a local about beer, which is how we ended up at a proper Kneipe that afternoon, drinking Flensburger Pils from those flip-top bottles that make you feel like you're in a 1970s advert.

The pub was called something unpronounceable, run by a woman who spoke exactly three words of English and communicated mainly through expressive eyebrow movements. She brought us plates of Labskaus, which Dave described as "corned beef hash that went to art school" and I described as "surprisingly delicious for something that colour." The pickled herring on the side was sharp enough to wake the dead, and I ate three portions while Dave watched in something between admiration and concern.

By day three, I'd abandoned any pretence of sophisticated cooking and embraced my actual skill level. Breakfast became an elaborate construction of market cheeses, dark bread, and local honey, eaten on our terrace while watching the boats. Lunch was whatever the nearest bakery had - Schleswig-Holstein does an excellent belegtes Brot, which is essentially a sandwich but somehow more serious about itself. Dinner, we'd alternate between my increasingly competent simple grilling of market fish and trips to local pubs, where I developed what Dave termed "a worrying attachment" to Rote Grutze, that red berry pudding they serve with cream.

My final cooking attempt came on our last night. Determined to use up the Tilsiter, I attempted a cheese sauce for some pasta. It split, obviously. I stared at it for a long moment, then poured us both large glasses of the local apple wine we'd discovered and ordered pizza from a place in Kappeln that Dave had spotted. It arrived forty minutes later, carried by a teenager on a moped, and we ate it on the terrace watching the sun drop over the Baltic.

"Better than your herring thing," Dave said, mouth full.

"Everything's better than my herring thing," I agreed.

And I meant it, mostly. Though I still think about that market Tilsiter sometimes. And the eyebrow lady. And the particular way the morning light hit that kitchen counter, making me believe, however briefly, that I could actually cook.