The SatNav had other ideas, didn't it? There I was, winding through Gelderland's flat green lanes, convinced I'd found a shortcut, when the road turned to gravel, then mud, then what I can only describe as a very aggressive puddle that may or may not have been a small pond. My partner gave me that look. You know the one. The "you said you knew where you were going" look. I had been so confident too, armed with a coffee and a packet of stroopwafels from the last petrol station, feeling like a proper continental traveller. The stroopwafels did not survive the puddle incident. They became one with the footwell. A sticky, caramel memorial to my hubris.

We eventually found Wenum Wiesel, our little holiday home for the week, tucked among trees with that satisfying crunch of proper gravel under the tyres. The owners had left the key in a lockbox with a code that I immediately forgot, standing there in the drizzle punching in my mother's birthday, my own birthday, the cat's birthday. Third time lucky, and the door swung open to that particular smell of wood panelling and someone else's very clean holiday. You know that smell? Slightly pine, slightly vanilla, entirely promising.

I made straight for the kitchen. Always do. It's how I judge a place. The cooker was gas, which pleased me enormously because I'd brought my favourite heavy-bottomed pan specifically for making proper stews. There was a fridge that hummed happily, a kettle that looked like it had seen some action, and a window overlooking a garden where a very bold blackbird was already eyeing me with territorial suspicion. I opened the cupboards. Basic but decent. Salt, pepper, some oil that smelled suspiciously of very little. I made a mental note to find a supermarket before dinner, because I had grand plans. Grand, ambitious, probably overreaching plans.

The nearest decent shop was in Apeldoorn, about fifteen minutes away. I say decent shop; I mean the Albert Heijn, which I had been weirdly excited about since booking. There's something about foreign supermarkets, isn't there? All the familiar things slightly wrong. The bread aisle alone kept me occupied for a solid ten minutes. I bought too much cheese, obviously. A wedge of aged Gouda that the woman behind the counter cut with that satisfying wire, some young cheese for everyday scoffing, and something blue that I couldn't properly identify but felt emotionally drawn to. Bread from the bakery section, still warm. Butter with actual salt crystals visible. Eggs with bright orange yolks that I would later discover make the most extraordinary scrambled eggs, almost embarrassingly yellow.

Back at Wenum Wiesel, I attempted my first proper meal. The kitchen, I discovered, had no proper wooden spoon. This is the kind of detail that derails me. I ended up using a spatula that was slightly too flexible, stirring a pan of chicken pieces with onions and the last of my smuggled-from-home thyme. The gas hob cooked hot and fast. I burned the first batch of onions slightly. Not badly, just enough to give them a bitter edge that I told myself was "caramelised." We ate at the little table by the window, watching that same blackbird fight a rival in the hedge, cheese and bread on a board between us, a bottle of local white wine that cost less than a London coffee and tasted of green apples and honesty.

The morning market in Apeldoorn became my religion. Wednesday and Saturday, apparently, though I only managed the Saturday. I woke early, earlier than on a work day, driven by some primal hunter-gatherer instinct that only activates on holiday. The cheese man remembered me from the supermarket, or pretended to, which amounted to the same thing. I bought tomatoes that smelled like tomatoes, which sounds obvious but you know how rare that is. A bunch of carrots with their feathery tops still attached, which I later discovered the blackbird would fight me for. Fresh herring from a van, served with raw onion and that little Dutch flag toothpick, eaten standing up like a local despite my partner's visible concern about my digestive fortitude.

I attempted Dutch pancakes on our third morning. The kitchen had a proper heavy pan, which helped, but my batter was too thick and my first effort resembled a rubbery plate rather than anything edible. The second was better. The third was genuinely good, thin and lacy round the edges, smothered in the stroopwafel syrup I'd bought as a replacement for my car-casualty biscuits. We ate them in the garden, the blackbird now accepting tribute in exchange for territorial peace, dropping crumbs strategically.

By day five I had settled into a rhythm. Breakfast of proper bread, thick with butter and that strange Dutch chocolate sprinkle stuff that makes no nutritional sense and every emotional sense. Lunch from market leftovers, eaten at the little kitchen table while reading a terrible novel I'd found on the shelf. Dinner became an event, planned in the afternoon, executed with varying competence. I made a stamppot that was probably inauthentic but deeply satisfying, mashed potatoes with kale and smoked sausage from the butcher in town, a ring of fat and meat that I sliced with perhaps too much ceremony. It stuck to the ribs in that way that makes you want to nap immediately, which I did, on the sofa, with the blackbird watching through the window like a disappointed parent.

The kitchen at Wenum Wiesel bore the marks of my learning curve. A small burn on the counter from a too-hot pan. A knife that I genuinely considered smuggling home because it had become an extension of my hand. A jar of speculoos spread that I dipped into with a spoon directly, standing at the fridge at midnight, because holiday rules are different rules.

On our last morning I made one final breakfast. The last of the eggs, the last of the cheese, the last of the bread. I cooked slowly, deliberately, knowing it was the end. The blackbird got the crusts. We packed the car in silence, the kitchen restored to its pine-and-vanilla neutrality, my heavy pan wrapped in a tea towel, my dignity slightly bruised but my stomach thoroughly victorious. I left the speculoos. Some things, I told myself, should stay where they belong. Though I did check the expiry date. Twelve months. I have been back twice since, just to the supermarket, just for the cheese, just to remember how good it feels to cook badly and eat well in someone else's very clean holiday kitchen.