I should have known the holiday was off to a classic start when I confidently strode up to what I thought was our Ostseeresort Olpenitz apartment, key card in hand, only to discover I was trying to unlock someone else's front door. The elderly gentleman inside looked rather less than thrilled to find a strange Brit attempting to enter his living room. Turns out I'd misread the number entirely. My other half found this absolutely hilarious, naturally, and has not let me forget it since.

The drive up through Schleswig-Holstein had been gorgeous though, all flat green fields and that enormous northern sky that seems to go on forever. We'd stopped at a farm shop somewhere near Eckernforde and loaded up with proper German bread, some smoked fish, and a wedge of cheese I couldn't pronounce. This, I announced grandly, would be the foundation of our self-catering excellence. No need for restaurants every night. We'd cook like locals.

Our first evening, I attempted to honour this promise with what I called a "Frisian-inspired" fish supper. I had watched precisely zero instructional videos and possessed no relevant skills. The result was edible, technically, though the kitchen smelled of smoked herring for approximately three days afterwards and the smoke alarm and I developed a rather intimate relationship. We opened every window in the apartment and ate on the balcony wrapped in blankets, watching the water turn pink and orange as the sun went down over the Kappeln estuary. The fish was perhaps overdone. The moment, however, was absolutely perfect.

The Ostseeresort Olpenitz itself sits right on the water, all modern Scandinavian-ish design with enormous windows that make you feel like you're floating. I'd specifically requested a place with a proper kitchen because I had elaborate plans about morning markets and slow breakfasts. Reality, as ever, proved more chaotic. Our first morning I burned the coffee in the stovetop pot, set off that blessed smoke alarm again, and we ended up walking to the little bakery in the resort's central area for pastries and proper brewed coffee like sensible people.

That bakery became our morning ritual. I'm not normally one for routine on holiday, but there's something deeply comforting about collecting warm Schrippe and something custard-filled, then wandering back along the boardwalk with paper bags getting progressively more translucent from butter. We'd eat on our balcony watching the boats and planning absolutely nothing.

The resort has a handful of restaurants and we did venture out properly on our third evening to one of the waterfront places, mostly because I'd exhausted my limited repertoire and my partner was making pointed comments about "perhaps letting professionals handle dinner." Fair enough. I had a fish soup that was embarrassingly better than anything I'd attempted, followed by schnitzel because when in Rome, or rather when in Schleswig-Holstein. The beer was local, cold, and enormous. I felt no guilt whatsoever about my kitchen failures.

We found a brilliant farmers' market in Kappeln, just a short drive along the coast, and this is where my culinary confidence briefly returned. Fresh asparagus, still local at that time of year, plus strawberries that actually tasted of something, and more of that impossible-to-pronounce cheese. I made a respectable supper that evening, if I do say so myself. We ate it with our feet up, watching the light change over the water, and I felt genuinely proud for approximately forty minutes until I remembered I'd done nothing more complex than boil vegetables and assemble cheese.

The resort's own little shop proved surprisingly useful for emergency supplies, though I did once spend an embarrassing amount of time trying to decipher whether I was buying cooking oil or some kind of industrial lubricant. German packaging can be mystifying when you've had a couple of afternoon beers. I chose correctly, as it happened, though my confidence was shaken enough that I made my partner verify every subsequent purchase.

Our final evening, we returned to the waterfront restaurant. I'd abandoned all pretence of self-catering greatness by this point and was entirely at peace with it. We shared a plate of North Sea shrimp, tiny and sweet and completely unlike anything I could have produced myself, followed by more fish because when you're this close to the water it feels almost rude to eat anything else. I raised my enormous beer in a private toast to my own limitations, and to the particular joy of letting other people do the cooking sometimes.

Driving home, boot packed with bread and that cheese and a small jar of something mustard-related I couldn't identify, I reflected that my kitchen ambitions had mostly collapsed. But somehow the food memories felt richer for it. The smoke alarm serenades, the buttery bakery mornings, the shrimp I didn't have to peel myself. Some holidays are about becoming a better cook. Others, apparently, are about becoming a more honest one.