I should have known the Sat Nav was up to no good the moment it tried to send me through a field of very unimpressed sheep. Three hours from Hull, two ferries, and one spectacular argument with a voice that sounded suspiciously like my mother-in-law later, I finally rolled into Lauwersoog with a boot full of crisps and a passenger seat covered in ferry tickets.

The property sat right where the land gives up and the water takes over, a proper sturdy Dutch place with windows that looked like they'd seen every storm since records began. I stepped out, stretched my legs, and promptly dropped my house key into a patch of ornamental grass that turned out to be considerably deeper than it looked. There I was, armpit-deep in somebody's garden at half past four on a Tuesday, when my first local appeared.

"First time?" called a voice from the neighbouring fence. Henk leaned on his gate like he'd been waiting all afternoon for entertainment to arrive. He wore wellies that had seen better decades and a flat cap that might have started life on someone else's head entirely. I admitted, from my undignified position, that yes, this was my inaugural visit. He nodded slowly, as if this explained everything, and offered me a pair of long barbecue tongs that lived permanently on his gatepost for exactly this purpose.

"Lost three sets myself before I learned," he said, by way of welcome. "The grass eats them. Nobody knows where they go."

The key retrieved, Henk introduced me to his wife Griet, who emerged from their kitchen wiping her hands on a tea towel and immediately informed me that I'd missed the best weather by exactly forty-eight hours. This, I gathered, was standard procedure. Griet had opinions on everything from my parking angle to my inadequate rain jacket, delivered with the kind of frankness that would start a feud in Yorkshire but here passed for neighbourly concern.

By teatime I'd met half the street. There was Sietse, who cycled past three times before stopping to ask if I was "the English" and then, satisfied, cycled off without further explanation. There was Joke, no relation to Henk despite sharing his gift for unsolicited commentary, who brought me a jar of something purple and unidentifiable with instructions to "eat it with cheese, not on cheese, that's different." I still don't know what it was. It was delicious. I'm too embarrassed to ask for more.

The bloke who really made the afternoon, though, was Fokke, who appeared at my door at six with a bottle of local beer and the confidence of a man who'd never been refused entry anywhere. He'd heard there was fresh English blood and had come to investigate whether I understood football, which apparently I don't, though not for the reasons I thought. We sat on my tiny patio as the light faded and he explained, with the patience of a man who'd explained this many times before, why Groningen province operates on slightly different rules to the rest of the Netherlands.

"Amsterdam thinks we're farmers," he said, gesturing vaguely southward with his bottle. "We think Amsterdam's lost the plot. Everyone's happy."

He told me about the ferry to Schiermonnikoog, visible from my window, and the seal sanctuary up the road where volunteers speak to injured seals in soft voices until they're well enough to ignore humans again. He told me about the winter storms when the water comes up to his doorstep and the summer evenings when nobody sleeps because the light won't let them. He told me Griet makes the best apple cake in the village but never uses enough cinnamon, and that Henk's tongs had rescued seventeen keys, one mobile phone, and a set of false teeth that nobody had ever claimed.

When Fokke finally left, promising to return tomorrow with his wife who "actually speaks proper English, not my nonsense," I sat in the quiet and listened to the water. The Sat Nav had tried to drown me in sheep. The grass had eaten my dignity. And somehow, in a few hours, these nosy, generous, gloriously blunt strangers had made me feel like I'd stumbled into exactly the right place.

I still haven't found out what was in that purple jar. I'm working up the courage to ask Griet. Or perhaps I'll just drop another key and wait for Henk's tongs to deliver the answer.