I should have known the sat nav was up to no good the moment it tried to send me through what looked like a sheep's front garden. There I was, bombing up the A7 from Groningen city, full of misplaced confidence and a boot full of snacks I definitely did not need, when the robotic voice announced I had reached my destination. Reader, I was in a lay-by next to a pylon. Classic.

The real Lauwersoog, when I finally found it after a sheepish phone call to the property manager, turned out to be one of those gloriously understated Dutch villages where the Wadden Sea sort of sidles up and says hello. My holiday home sat in a neat little row, all timber cladding and sensible windows, the sort of place that looks like it has opinions about proper bicycle maintenance.

The door opened before I could even fumble for the key code. Not a ghost, thankfully, but Piet from next door, who had apparently appointed himself unofficial welcome committee. He was seventy if he was a day, wearing gardening trousers held up by what I can only describe as determination, and clutching a mug the size of a small bucket. "You're the English," he announced, which felt less like a greeting and more like a diagnosis. I admitted it. He nodded slowly, as if this explained my sat nav situation entirely.

Piet introduced me to his wife Griet within the hour, though "introduced" suggests more formality than occurred. She simply appeared at the fence while I was wrestling with the wheelie bin, handed me a slice of appeltaart still warm from her oven, and asked if I knew that English people walked funny. I said I had heard rumours. She laughed like a drain and told me to come for coffee tomorrow or she would be offended. There was something in her tone that suggested this was not actually optional.

The property itself was spotless in that slightly intimidating Dutch way, all pale wood and enormous windows that seemed designed to make you confront your own lifestyle choices. I spent a good ten minutes just standing in the kitchen, wondering if my entire existence measured up to the standard of the cutlery drawer. The living area opened onto a small terrace where, I later learned, Piet conducted his evening surveillance of the neighbourhood with a Grolsch and the patience of a man who has nowhere else to be.

By day two I had accumulated what felt like a full social calendar through sheer accident. There was Joke from the tiny supermarket, who explained in exhausting detail why I was buying the wrong cheese for the region and physically removed it from my basket. There was the teenage boy who delivered bread on a bicycle older than me, who communicated exclusively in shrugs until I mentioned football, at which point he delivered a fifteen-minute tactical analysis of FC Groningen that I understood perhaps three words of. I nodded vigorously throughout. He seemed satisfied.

The thing about Lauwersoog, I started to realise, is that people have time for you whether you want it or not. Back home I would dodge eye contact in the Tesco car park; here, refusing a conversation felt like a minor social crime. I found myself lingering at the harbour, where a man called Sietse explained the entire history of local mussel farming to me while I held a bag of said mussels I had not actually intended to buy. I bought them. Obviously.

On my third evening, Piet caught me attempting to barbecue in a light drizzle that was rapidly becoming actual rain. He did not say anything. He simply went inside, returned with a golf umbrella, and stood there holding it over my sausages with the resigned air of a man who has seen many things in his life and found most of them disappointing. We ate together on my terrace, the three of us, Griet having materialised with potato salad and a bottle of something clear that made my eyes water. Piet talked about the sea coming in and going out, about the birds that used to be different, about his grandson in Leeuwarden who never visits. Griet interrupted periodically to correct his dates and pour more of the eye-watering liquid. I mostly listened, which seemed to be the expected contribution.

Sitting there, slightly drunk on spirits and unexpected company, I thought about how I had arrived full of plans for long walks and productive solitude. How I had packed three books and not opened one. How I had come to be alone and found myself, instead, thoroughly claimed by a village that seemed to operate on the principle that strangers were just friends who had not yet been properly interrogated about their cheese preferences.

The rain got heavier. Piet's umbrella developed a slow drip directly onto his shoulder, which he ignored with magnificent Dutch stoicism. Griet told a story about a German tourist who had once tried to swim to Schiermonnikoog, which apparently everyone still talked about. I laughed until my ribs hurt, and not entirely from the story.

I had come to Lauwersoog to escape people, I think. To find some peace in the wide grey sky and the mudflats stretching out towards the islands. Instead I found Piet and Griet and Joke and Sietse and the shrug-boy whose name I never did catch. I found myself inducted into something I had not asked for and suddenly could not imagine doing without.

The sat nav never did work properly for the whole trip. I took to navigating by memory, by the landmarks Piet pointed out, by the slowly building map in my head of where people lived and what they would tell you if you let them. It was less efficient, undoubtedly. It took longer to get anywhere. I arrived everywhere slightly late and slightly damp and carrying something someone had pressed upon me.

On my final morning, Griet appeared with more appeltaart wrapped in foil, and Piet produced a hand-drawn map to get me back to the A7 without incident. It involved several turns he described as "where the big dog used to be" and one reference to "the corner where everyone speeds but shouldn't." I followed it to the letter. It worked perfectly.

I waved at them in my rear-view mirror, two small figures by a timber house, and felt something unexpected settle in my chest. I had come for the sea, perhaps, or the quiet, or the escape. I left with foil-wrapped cake and the certain knowledge that somewhere in Groningen, two elderly people were now officially disappointed in my life choices and would tell me so at length on my inevitable return.

I am already planning when that might be. The sat nav can stay at home.